Tuesday, June 10, 2014

Tuesday poem #62 : Dan Thomas-Glass : four poems from "first work"


First work within
the world. Premium
coverage for pajamas
toddling wakely from
new rooms. First
dead black man in
America. Costs to
bleed. That I could end
this featureless bounty
with my pen. Alma’s
bright O each morning
at the bells. That tenderness
this. That tenderness
wins. Intimate air at
first work in the bowels
beside books. Call
the work of your dreams
to your dreams.  Wretched
Earth below trees. Songs
where they question
after termination. The day
ceases. One last disclaimer:
the information provided.
Great granite walls for
histories. Open season.


First work within
the world. Imminent
teeters—tomorrow
& tomorrow. What
withers low income
land, one point about
industry. What I know
what I been through.
Splice figures: bhangra
feels pain to get rich. Sonia,
moved, keeps whispering
her hurts—stupid, stupid.
Sun daughters once &
then again—how empty
fists where diamonds
were. Hmm. Alma takes
a header at the market
& bears new braille
on her growing skin.
Forward lisps standing
at the window small
shoulders at morning
branching to smaller
trees smaller still. We
rockin stilettos ho. So
so so. 


First work within
the world. Body of
clouds pressuring
moisture to thinning
skin. Humming power
lines streets & blonde
as my girls the wishes
effervesce toward
imagined brunches. So
little wilts. Humming
coastal tunes morning
& what I love. What I
love. Sonia explains
that her sleeveless nightie
has long sleeves & these
words leave me sleepless
in LA like a movie set
with the labor gone home
& the morning cawing
like hungry painted crows.
O tomorrow & again
Alma curls her head against
my groin where Kate jokes
she can’t go home
she can’t go home
when it’s her body &
the body she grew.


First work within
the world. Etch coverage
in freeway clovers:
signal tower to life
guard reds between
shutters & humid
beach. Sonia digs &
preens, new outfits
for each season
of the AM. Language
where we start
in the night: retching
sounds in the tin
of monitored air.
The slag of vomit
like a city on the sheets,
with peaks of what’s
hip oozing over scars.
How the stars love cars.
How the clouds repent,
washing asphalt for us
so the smell of tomorrow—
while Alma wags her finger
no, awwright—will
twinkle twinkle newly
as our songs.

Dan Thomas-Glass is the author of The Great American Beatjack Volume I (Perfect Lovers Press), Kate & Sonia (in the months before our second daughter's birth) (Little Red Leaves Textile Series), Seaming (Furniture Press), and 880 (Deep Oakland Editions). Daughters of your century is forthcoming in 2014 from Furniture Press. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife Kate and their daughters Sonia and Alma. 

the Tuesday poem is curated by rob mclennan

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