Whistling Fire publishes “Refracted Light” by Katherine Gekker, June 23, 2011

Please see The Whistling Fire for my poem, “Refracted Light.”

Halcyon Trio Oregon will perform “Chasing the Moon Down” Sunday, June 19

This concert will include Carson Cooman’s wonderful work that sets my poem, “Chasing the Moon Down,” to music for voice, piano and trumpet, and will benefit NAMI.

NewsRegister.com – News and information for McMinnville and Yamhill Valley, Oregon – wine country newspaper.

The Whistling Fire will publish “Refracted Light” on June 23rd

The Whistling Fire has announced its June 2011 publishing schedule. Katherine Gekker’s poem, “Refracted Light,” will be published on June 23rd.

Read more about Whistling Fire and its June schedule here.

Childhood Poem IV

This poem was published in a limited edition book, “Childhood Poems,” in 1975. I was in love with Marianne Moore’s syllabics.

The room my brother and I
slept in was huge and
cold. At night my mother read

To us from a child’s book of
prayers. We knew all
of them by heart and repeated

Them along with her until
she made us stop. Then
she spread our clothes over the

Radiator so they were
warm when we put them
on in the morning. One night

After my mother left and my
brother fell asleep, I
thought I was flying through the air.

I flapped my arms and went higher
and lower. Sometimes I
just glided, but I never fell.

When I woke up, I was cold.
I was on top of
the toy chest across the room.

Quickly I ran back to bed.
No one saw me.

© Katherine Gekker 1975

Childhood Poem III

This poem was published in a limited edition book, “Childhood Poems,” in 1975. It is the first poem of mine that I remember liking. I wrote it when I was in my late teens.

When I was a child
I spent the night at
Patty’s house.

She told me there was
no Santa Claus but
I did not

Believe her. So we
crept out and I saw
her mother

Putting presents near
the tree. Her mother’s
garters showed

And I giggled and
wanted to be in
my own home.

But later when we were
lying in bed and it
was so dark, we

Were watching the ceiling.
Patty said – Do you see
the red and blue

Pixies? – (of course, of course)
– Over by the light they’re
getting married

Tonight. All the pixies
are going there. Do you
see them? Do you? –

Yes Yes Of Course I Do
yes oyes I really do

© Katherine Gekker 1975

Always in the Black

Does the music take you back?
Deep into the tunnel,
Can you see the next rung?
Past layered fishes
scattered flat dinosaurs
tar pit babies.
Before we lose the rhythm.

(John Henry swings the hammer/
takes you six feet down)

No cool sewer sax
under crust-and-mantle
movable pates of earth’s skull.
Fire consumes the brain.
(The next rung’s hot.)
Before we lose it:
The cha cha through.

Past molten blood to a searing white center:
no green mambas slither hot coals.
But the end of the ladder:
always in the black.

(Coal’s going to be the death of me O Lord/
“          “       “    “    “      “       “   “ )

© Katherine Gekker, 1979 (Originally published in “Positively Prince Street,” 1979.)

Separating the Immutable

Winter at the shore
and the sun disdains us, suspended
high and immobile

while an old man leans
against a brick wall, away
from the wind, his
green jacket tans brown
at its neck and its wrists.

And waves aloof from
the sea dangle brown
and white above
the sand in a mercenary barter
with the shore.

At the horizon, sky and sea
meet, a thin band of darker
blue vibrates, separating the immutable:
this is a matter for physics.

Suddenly a gull screams
buffeted higher by the harsh wind
from its dinner

and a caress of cold air
lifts my hair from my head.

© Katherine Gekker, 1979
(Originally published in “Positively Prince Street,” 1979, as “Untitled.”)