Six Poems
by GTimothy Gordon
What Kandinsky Said
When he splashed color
all over canvas in several arcs
and swirls, the chisel goading
a gaudy black border, up-
thrown into scalped relief,
taught to be green by the Geist
before being blue being blue
beingblue beingblue beingblue…
Klee to Kandinsky
The only thing real is the long, deep, inward gaze.
(Diary 20.06.1916)
The language of Blaue, Herr K.,
writes through me all night long
while slick ships prowl, quiet
and keeled and scrupulously
proud, and I cannot stop
waiting for morning to grant me
my great black flower!
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.
Immersive
bluebudblueashbluesprucebluestemblueleaf
bluerosebluegrassbluefieldbluemesabluespring
blueskybluebirdbluejayblueoceanbluewhale
bluefinbluecapbluetailbluewavebluenilebluelight
bluenightbluemoonbluemoviebluenosebluelaw
bluestockingbluenunbluejeanbluedreamblueball
bluebeardbluebloodbluedevilbluegracebluegrouse
blueheelerbluebellblueberrybluesuedebluestreak
blueprintbluepencilbluelinebluebottleblueragout
bluetonguebluefaceblueeyebluehairbluetoothblueice
blueblockblueribbonbluecornbluechipbluebonnet
bluestewblueflyblueblackbluedarterblueyonderblueflu
blueheartbluesuitbluecollarbluelaceblueveinblueboy
blueflamebluefunkbluemoodblueyoubluemountain
bluestonebluetbluehorizonbluebeyondbluestillness
blueairbluedreamblueflamebluespringblueleafbluebud
BIO: GTimothy Gordon’s DREAM WIND was published 2020 (Spirit-of-the-Ram), GROUND OF THIS BLUE EARTH (Mellen), while EVERYTHING SPEAKING CHINESE received RIVERSTONE P Poetry Prize (AZ). Work appears in AGNI, American Literary R, Cincinnati PR, Mississippi R, New York Q, RHINO, Sonora R, and Texas Observer, among others. EMPTY was published January 2024 (Cyberwit P), BLUE BUSINESS is in-progress. (56). He divides lives between borderland Chihuahuan Desert Southwest Organ Mountains and Asia.