Heather Sager
Surrealism and Painting
An artist can paint the rolling landscape
outside her window at dusk
purple shadows and orange bluffs catching
the romance of the sun-setting dark hour
the purple shadows of the earth
a free-fall into an infinity of depth
An artist can paint under the influence
of Max Ernst, turning her
Wisconsin trailer park town desolation
into a phantasmagoria of ash-colored hills
and Cubist factories and still
this artist can smile a can’t-catch-me smile
as if nothing can keep her down
as if she will always get up swinging
An artist can suffer a breakdown
all the bare dead tree limbs etching gray sky
like a confused prison of lines
and the artist can say “Lines, the world is only
lines” in dismay, lamenting the lack of color
This is not to say nothing can cure
the pain of the bewildered devotee
of all the lines and colors
the canvas and charcoals and pastels and oils
This is not to say the world doesn’t turn,
even for those who are so entranced