"Catapult"
Click the arrow on the audio player to hear Kimberly Johnson read this poem. You can also download the recording or subscribe to Slate's Poetry Podcast on iTunes.
.
Knock back the catch on the spooled cord, and let fly!
Skyward my blithe port de bras, and skyward flings
Anything you give me: flaming haybales,
Boulders, wet mounds of dung, groundling stuff
Which airborne turns unearthly beauty, unbodied grace
For which the battlement's too mean a target.
See how, shot, that clatter of tacks glints
Like stars above the bonfires, how that vat of rendered fat
Anoints the fortress walls with burning.
See how the corpses of the hostile dead
Hang angelic in the middle air. And how, angelic,
They fall, as if hungering for the earth
And its sweet demolishings. Holy the fall.
I hymn it with my arm.
.
UPDATE: Oklahoma Officials Revise Tornado Death Toll Down to 24
Tornado Survivor Finds Her Missing Dog in the Rubble of Her Home During a TV Interview
Will the IRS's Tea Party Profiling Convince Conservatives That All Profiling Is Wrong?
Kimberly Johnson is the author of two collections of poetry, Leviathan with a Hook and A Metaphorical God, and of a translation of Virgil's Georgics.
For Slate's poetry submission guidelines, click spacerhereyeshyperlinkPoetry SubmissionsSlate reads new poems from Oct. 1 to April 30. Manuscripts sent between May 1 and Sept. 30 will not be considered.To submit poems: Send, as a single attached document, up to three poems of no more than 50 lines each to editors@slatepoems.com. Use the poet's name for the subject line of the e-mail and for the title of the attachment. We prefer Word documents (.doc or .docx) to PDFs.Please include a brief, professional cover letter, including publication history, in the body of your email. Please limit submissions to one per poet per annual reading period. Simultaneous submissions are OK. Slate no longer accepts poetry submissions by mail. The email address editors@slatepoems.com is for poetry submissions only (or to notify editors of acceptance elsewhere of a poem under consideration at Slate). Other inquiries, etc., will not be addressed.10000false220061444537PMWednesdayJanJanuary161/4/2006 9:45:37 PM63271989937000000020061444537PMWednesdayJanJanuary161/4/2006 9:45:37 PM632719899370000000.Click here to visit Robert Pinsky's Favorite Poem Project site.Click here for an archive of discussions about poems with Robert Pinsky in "the Fray," Slate's reader forum.