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