Open this book and fall into a tumultuous world where each act sings, shouts and cries the full chorus of the unconscious. Matson uses kaleidoscopic images that infiltrate our work-a-day defenses and invite our deepest feelings and truths to surface - like taking a roller coaster ride with an old sage/young boy, hair streaming white, knuckles clenched, eyes closed, laughing. And when you open those eyes - there - what do you see?
Information
published by: Broken Shadow Publications, 2002
ISBN: 0-9636156-2-9
LCCN:2001087637
format: perfect bound, 5.25 x 8.25 inches
numbered pages: 69
cover graphic: William Blake
cover design: Catherine Dinnean
book design: Gail Ford
Contact the author to buy it.
Excerpts from Squish Boots
Molecule Daisy
Mostly empty space, this molecule,
and I am standing on it.
A skeleton on the median,
fleshless and clean. Its support:
one molecule at pelvis, one at heel,
one at skull. A spray of grass
pokes through the ribcage.
I am doing one good thing,
balance check: going shopping.
A dollar in my pocket.
On a thin sidewalk of yellow leaves
people walk by, not looking.
Maybe if I smile at this one.
Maybe if I look away.
Any twig, flower or bit of dust
could fall out of the sky and
scrunch! I'm one bug squashed
through earth. Sieved by a sieve.
Roam the body: legs move,
insides work, back flat,
balance check. Float on a
miniscus of good feeling.
A gutter-grate rattles: bony
fingers twist at the bars.
A skeleton tries to climb up
from below, with a brown
string and three tomatoes.
Here comes a thought! Kick it
before it pulls me down.
Torn duct tape, holding flat
a printed yellow sign ~ away.
The bank and office building tilt.
Is this a backflip into the street?
Turn head to an angle. There.
Level stays level.
The world's skin is one molecule
thick and I've got it
between my toes. Don't trip.
Molecule meets molecule.
An upside-down world underneath the street,
balance check. Cherry pits, a working
elbow, burp, old carrot smell. Garbage
eats itself because it feels bad.
Dismembered daisies clutter sidewalks.
He loves me, she loves me not,
she loves me, he loves me not.
The world's skin is a thin
scatter of yellow petals.
Air goes in the lungs gently.
Don't breathe it out your back.
Keep below the asphalt! You cemetary
crawling with spiders and bones,
one molecule away. Balance check.
Mosquitos come from the river
with probosci extended. Molecules slurp.
Maybe if I smile at the next
face. Maybe if I say "Hello."
One toe on the sidewalk, balance
check. One toe on a molecule.
A dollar in my pocket,
going to the market.
Walking on a daisy petal bridge
above a boneyard. Don't fall in.
Shadow Traffic
Animals and trucks
move around in my body.
You don't know what they are.
I don't know what they are.
A gorilla with peaked head,
ship's anchor with barnacled chains,
yards of cowshit on a flatbed,
a snake ball, getting fuzzy.
Fuzzier. If they were clear
I could shoot bull's eyes,
or direct traffic over-under
at the cloverleafs.
Shadows rumble through bottom
groin and center chest. They move
through each other without pain.
Each one carries a load.
I don't know what they are.
You don't know what they are.
Clear and I could ride
a hayload into the meadow.
Clang out a cherry-red shovel
on the portable anvil.
No one could match the speed.
"We are finding that emotions
at some level enter into most
of what happens during the day."
I'm walking in a wool and pigment
forest or maybe the city dump,
or a mall getting landscaped.
I don't know. You don't know.
Knee deep then neck high
in gray water, from the roof?
Peptides flowing over the top
of the expanding liver?
You don't know. I don't know.
I am a clear glass pane
with thoughts and actions
written so clearly
they are not written at all.
Can you see your next act?
You think your next thought
without looking. Without looking
I do my next act.
Animals and trucks
move around in my body.
