three poems

by GTimothy Gordon

Late                                                             

(3, after Edward Hopper)

1

You know it’s late

the way a place looks

when you come the other way.

You can never quite wipe

the fog from your eyes,

indict the right failure.

A little like finding

your pulse fast asleep, soon.

Then, you remember your hands.

How they spoke fondly

of the place they left.

How they will feel the next time

they leave for a long spell.

Too Late

2

The sorrow men have come

and gone and soiled the night.

Their trench coats loitered like

Alan Ladd boarding L’Express

for Zürich. Except, of course,

they were not wan, blonde, wavery.

Nor did their footsteps measure

the roots of hours. Nor were Straßen

cobbly and dank, greased by spatting rain.

Only the blind by the bridge

with maps for faces

saw what we might,

and spoke

in broad, black, strokes—

too late.

Then

3

After the long haul you wait

for the slow still-life to matter.

The door clears out like mesa, prairie,

final, undone. What’s left—

Druid embroidery by design.

Nothing Moody. Dusky. Bluesy. Mauve.

Nothing to set pewter upon.

Nothing with indigo in it.

You wait. You wait for the tramps

to traipse in from the fields

braiding their raw, crotchety hats.

You brace for their brush by the door.

Then. Then you air everything.

Then the business begins.

*Originally published at The Argyle Literary Magazine

Photo of GTimothy Gordon

BIO: Gordon holds degrees in Literature and Philosophy, Creative Writing, a doctorate in Comparative Languages  and Literatures, awarded NEA and NEH Fellowships for teaching and scholarship, artist residencies, poetry prizes, and presentations of critical and creative papers in juried journals and readings at global symposia. DREAM WIND was published 2020 (Spirit-of-the-Ram), GROUND OF THIS BLUE EARTH (Mellen), while EVERYTHING SPEAKING CHINESE received RiverStone Press Poetry Prize, NIGHT COMPANY nominated for NEA Western States’ Book Awards. Work appears in AGNI, American Literary R, Cincinnati R, Mississippi R, New York Q, RHINO, several nominated for Pushcarts and Best of the Net. EMPTY was published 2024, BLUE BUSINESS, his ninth book, forthcoming 2025 (Cyberwit Press). Recognized in Poets & Writers, Inc. (NY), Maine Society of Poets, Ohio Writers’ Directory, he divides lives among the borderland New Mexico/Texas Chihuahuan Desert Southwest Organ Mountains and Asia.