USA

clive@matson-ford.com 

BACK WORDS

I'm standing in a doorway
with a mouthful of dirt.
Trying to read the words
stuck in my back.

Commands written on
childhood walls were layered
over with candy paint.

Phrases bled through in
squiggles like string after
cat's play or like a
Venusian street guide.

I peeled off that map.
Wrapped it around my boyhood.
Skin grew over the landmarks
and planted them deep
under muscles and nerves.

Knots the shape of walnuts
sprouted between my shoulders.
They could be minuscule
globes or atlases crumpled
into ping-pong balls.

Even with magnifiers the
roadsigns are blotched, twisted,
some letters upside-down.
Unreadable in a mirror.

Look in my rib cage and find
playthings and words scattered
around like wet sand. Grit smeared
teddy bears, cookies, T-shirts
and memories of tiny shoes.

Piece together two words
from shredded bits around my spine:
"Don't feel!  Don't feel!"

Walnuts and ping-pong balls
pop in a hot skillet.
The pan curls into my forehead
like the tip of a shovel.

I'm standing at heaven's gate
with a mouthful of dirt.

BLADE RUDDER

Father in body,
mother in body,
blade in water.

Father curls up and turns
his back. Nothing goes
right and he'll die soon.

Mother flits around, pulling
and tugging at Dad. She talks
and talks, little gleams in her eyes.

If I hold very, very still
I will figure out what they are doing.

Dad puts on his smiley face.
"I like things that go brrmbm,"
and he becomes one, going
brrmbm with his eyes closed.
"No!" is written on his back.

Brrmbm, brrmbm the engine starts,
moves through gears and backfires.
Smoke puffs come up the gangway.

Mom on the radio, "Ship to shore!
Come in please! Are we afloat?
Is our mast still pointing up?"

If I hold very, very still
I will figure out what I am doing.

Mom tilts to the right, runs
up vertebrae-like stairs.
"Don't move! Don't rock the boat!"

Dad is ballast, a heavy metal
ball, uranium or lead, pulling
the ship off course. Or on course.
He keeps his eyes shut tight.

Mom pokes her head out the bridge.
"What's all this wax doing here?"
Brrmbm comes from the spine.
"And clean out those nostrils!"

"What's that slanting through air,
ashes? A snow storm?" Brrmbm.
"It's from your stomach?" Brrmbm.
"I better run back down
and rev up the engine."

Turbine in motor room a boom
ball with red stripes rotating
and pinching out. Half speed,
then full speed ahead
and damn the torpitude!

Mom runs to the helm
and reads a map upside down.
"Ship to shore! Ship to shore!
Can you see us now?
Is our smile on straight?
Is our back very erect?"

Rudder blade in water.
Foam swirls. Shoreline
stays serene and motionless.

Dad is the boom?ball engine
spinning at my spine base.
Mom back-flips down the stairs
and looks up with glitter eyes.

Blade in water. Toe to head
turned edgewise, aligned very straight.

"My, what strong posture you have!
Such nice obsidian eyes!" The deck
cracks, 6.8 on the Richter
and Mom turns a cartwheel.

If I stay very, very still,
I will figure out what I am doing.
If I am very, very active,
I will express what I am doing.

Sparks flash in Mom's pupils.
Engine shoots flame and brrmbm noise.
Dark blade cuts through water.

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 C getting fuzzy,

fuzzier. If they were clear
I could shoot bull's eyes,
or direct traffic over-under
at the cloverleafs.

Shadows rumble through center
chest and bottom groin. 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.

If they were visible, I could
ride the hayload into a
meadow. Clang out a cherry-red
shovel on a portable anvil,
surprised at my own 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 the city dump,
or maybe a mall getting landscaped.

I don't know. You don't know.

Knee deep then neck high
in gray water, from the
second-story roof? Peptides
overflowing my 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 predict your next act?
You think your next thought
without planning. Without planning
I do my next act.

Animals and trucks
move around in my body.

DUCK TIGERS

Say one wrong thing
and the tendrilly scarf
in Mom's hair, a drippy
green fringe on Dad's hat

spring apart and out jumps
a tiger.

Roar! Pounce, then behind
scarf and fringe the tiger
slinks back. Into a jungle pasted
over with glossy pictures.

Dad with his wispy hair
and arrow mustache.
Mom bright-eyed with
clothes-hanger shoulders.

"Line up, kids.
Now stop giggling."

Roar! Tiger, teeth all around, chomp!

Hop into that straight line,
say "Cheese" and tousle heads
sway left, sway right.
Keep those freckles congruent
and the perfect family smiles.

The tiger hides, itchy eyes and
twitchy jaw, in moss and vines.

Sway left, sway right.
I can keep this up only
so long. Bright smile.
My lips flinch and a
big toe sticks through
my sock. Is that bad?

Roar! Tiger, teeth all around, chomp!

Mom changes the subject, avoidance:
"Cousin Eddy's apple tree is
blooming, sparkling white blossoms!"
Stonewall: "I was standing
right here, nothing happened.
I didn't even see nothing happen."
Strong offense: "You're hypersensitive
and you're dreaming."
The experts confer: "No tigers
live in northern latitudes."
Belittling: "Those teeth marks
aren't very deep."
Denial: "What teeth marks? What blood?"

Brother's slick black hair, my arm,
sister's nose and ear jig together
in a tightly sawn puzzle.

"Your job is to say the one thing
hat won't upset the picture."
Say fab, say glad, say sad, say mad.
Sway left, sway right.
"Make nice-nice to your mother
and smile at the camera."

Tonight? Tomorrow? The day
after? The rest of my life?

Roar! Tiger, teeth all around, chomp!

"What tiger?" "What teeth?" "This is north!"
"Hah!" "Those are just scratches."
"Apple blossoms, white, at cousin Eddy's."

Dad's hat in hand, head shiny,
Mom's scarf unruffled.
Wash out that mouth
and watch your tongue.
Stand up straight.
Synchronize that dance.

"Your task is to state one thing
we can stand." Anything else
put a lid on and bury in mind.

Under mountains of hair
clippings, old shirts, dirty
hand soap and toothpaste?
For forty years? And forty more?

I'm going to 'rupt this picture!

Scratchy Roar, teeth all around?
Squeaky "What tiger?" "What blood?"
"This is north!" "Apple blossoms."

Dad's moustache arrow, Mom's
hanging scarf, all crepe paper
and floppy green? No big
big noise? No fangy mouth?

Reach through moss, vines, green
tinsel and rubber tarantulas.
Pull that tiger's tail,
fangs, stripes, growl, and all.

Pull that tiger out.
Claws rip across bark,
turning up thin curlicues
and there's more than one!

A row of tigers, each with Mom's
or Dad's face, one inch tall.
Each biting the other's tail.

Pink dabs on their teeth.

SQUISH BOOTS

Am I this child,
pushing one hot cheek
against yours from inside?

Are you my Daddy?
How can you walk
with those funny hairy balls
between your legs? Where hundreds
of millions of tiny people
jump around in fish suits?

You want to admit,
"`I live inside two fists
wanting to beat' emotion
lifeless in everyone."

Fight or flight!
Flight or fight!

Are you my Mommy?
What's your face like
behind lipstick and eye shadow?
What face is yours when I climb
between warm sheets and nestle
those soft, round things?

You want to admit,
"`I live inside two cheeks,
red, ashamed' of mine and
everyone else's thoughts."

Flight or fight!
Fight or flight!

Dodge shafts of light
that zing from eyes like
arrows with poison thoughts.
Dodge bad people who
see me as bug and
want to squash under boots.

Blank my eyes.
Put on my cool face
like a dropped veil.

Shadow-box dangling earrings.
Outcool gun-barrel eyes.
Flip-flop grunty noises into telephones.
Slap skin footprints on polished granite.

Fight or flight!
Flight or fight!

Behind your masks dripping with
spiders and halloween blood
I see your soft sponge
bodies and tender cotton eyes.

I worm in like warm sex
and become a bandit virus
that can slough off layers
of outer skin and feel
the shape of your face.

Am I a child,
pushing my hot cheeks
against yours from inside?

Are you my sister?
Gripping the ground with toes
like a dancer, neck sprung
sideways, torso and arms

flexing out curves and jabs?
"Fight or flight" on the
palms of your hands?

Are you my brother?
Do you run strong and
jangly with loose knees
and elbows, feet clunking

in steel-toed boots?
"Fight or flight" on the
bottoms of your feet?

I can be you both.
Bend nerves and bones into
round hips or triangle shoulders.

Stretch cells into strings
till they pluck and vibrate,

"Fight or flight!
Flight or fight!"

Mimic your stance so well
you think I'm you.
Open secret hearts with feet
and hands molded to your soul.

Are you my Mommy?
Are you my Daddy?
Put on my soft squish
boots and radar eyes.
Are you my Brother?
Are you my Sister?

Am I this child,
pushing one hot cheek
against yours from inside?

(A version of "Back Words" first 
appeared in HANGING LOOSE, of "Blade
Rudder" in EXQUISITE CORPSE,  of "Shadow Traffic" 
in VISIONS INTERNATIONAL, and of 
"Duck Tigers" in NORTHERN CONTOURS. All these
poems are from SQUISH BOOTS.)

© Copyright, Clive Matson.
All Rights Reserved. Printed By Permission.