Katherine Gallagher is a widely-published Australian poet resident in London since 1979. Winner of the 1981 Warana Prize, her books include Circus Apprentice, (Arc Publications, 2006), The Eye’s Circle (Rigmarole, 1974), Passengers to the City (Hale & Iremonger, 1985), Fish-rings on Water (Forest Books, 1989) Finding the Prince (Hearing Eye Pamphlet Series, 1993), a translation of Jean-Jacques Celly’s poems, The Sleepwalker with Eyes of Clay (Forest Books, 1994) and Tigers on the Silk Road (Arc Publications, 2000). Passengers to the Citywas shortlisted for the 1986 Adelaide Festival National Poetry Awards. Tigers on the Silk Road is distributed in Australia by Fremantle Arts Centre Press/Penguin. In 2005, Vagabond Press published After Kandinsky, a limited edition series of poems on Kandinsky paintings, in their Rare Objects Series.

Quelle poetry p f

Yellow, Red, Blue

(after Kandinsky, 1925)

Watch the animal eyes that whisk corners
faster than an angel breathing passwords
in a mesh of yellow. Cloud-sure, life flags itself on.
Circle after circle is mapped in the mystery
of a line quicker than an arrow, shot from left to right,
the dark corners turned in on themselves,
while the sea advances up the cliffs.

Presently a cat walks tall out of the waves,
eyes open, heading for the fire at the centre,
the red waves fanned, turned crimson,
surrounded by purples that ferry
the jigsaw's spell. Choices multiply,
resonate, form patterns for love-songs
the heart claims again and again.

In the background, dark moons, resilient,
juggle patchwork squares, lines, and curves.
Light bounces off them as finally the perfect blue
you've been waiting for, dips, tumbles
into the still of the storm, among reds, purples,
all shades - this country you keep coming back to,
that walks you home to yourself.

Katherine Gallagher
Collection Circus Apprentice, 2006,
Arc Publications, ISBN 1-904614-02-7
and in After Kandinsky, 2005,
Vagabond Press, Rare Objects Series