by Alden Nowlan
Down from the purple mist of trees on the mountain,
lurching through forests of white spruce and cedar,
stumbling through tamarack swamps,
came the bull moose
to be stopped at last by a pole-fenced pasture.
Too tired to turn or, perhaps, aware
there was no place left to go, he stood with the cattle.
They, scenting the musk of death, seeing his great head
like the ritual mask of a blood god, moved to the other end
of the field, and waited.
The neighbours heard of it, and by afternoon
cars lined the road. The children teased him
with alder switches and he gazed at them
like an old, tolerant collie. The woman asked
if he could have escaped from a Fair.
The oldest man in the parish remembered seeing
a gelded moose yoked with an ox for plowing.
The young men snickered and tried to pour beer
down his throat, while their girl friends took their pictures.
And the bull moose let them stroke his tick-ravaged flanks,
let them pry open his jaws with bottles, let a giggling girl
plant a little purple cap
of thistles on his head.
When the wardens came, everyone agreed it was a shame
to shoot anything so shaggy and cuddlesome.
He looked like the kind of pet
women put to bed with their sons.
So they held their fire. But just as the sun dropped in the river
the bull moose gathered his strength
like a scaffolded king, straightened and lifted his horns
so that even the wardens backed away as they raised their rifles.
When he roared, people ran to their cars. All the young men
leaned on their automobile horns as he toppled.
A few random poems:
- Inscription for the Entrance to a Wood by William Cullen Bryant
- The Death Of Myth-Making by Sylvia Plath
- Ballade Of The Royal Game Of Golf poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Power Of Thought
- Morning at the Window by T. S. Eliot
- Hey birds by Raj Arumugam
- Loud Silence by Preethi Saravanakumar
- Occasioned By The Battle Of Waterloo February 1816 by William Wordsworth
- Как небо сходится с водой
- Untitled #13 by Nijole Miliauskaite
- Epitaph on John Busby, Esq., Tinwald Downs by Robert Burns
- Wraiths by Siegfried Sassoon
- Choriambics — I by Rupert Brooke
- Sonnet Of Motherhood XXIV poem – Zora Bernice May Cross poems
- The Fall by William Barnes
External links
Bat’s Poetry Page – more poetry by Fledermaus
Talking Writing Monster’s Page –
Batty Writing – the bat’s idle chatter, thoughts, ideas and observations, all original, all fresh
Poems in English
- Robert Burns: I Hae Been At Crookieden:
- Robert Burns: Ye Jacobites By Name:
- Robert Burns: Such A Parcel Of Rogues In A Nation:
- Robert Burns: Frae The Friends And Land I Love:
- Robert Burns: Nithsdale’s Welcome Hame:
- Robert Burns: Address To The Shade Of Thomson: On Crowning His Bust at Ednam, Roxburghshire, with a Wreath of Bays.
- Robert Burns: Sweet Afton :
- Robert Burns: My Bonie Bell:
- Robert Burns: Thou Fair Eliza:
- Robert Burns: O For Ane An’ Twenty, Tam :
- Robert Burns: My Tocher’s The Jewel:
- Robert Burns: Altho’ He Has Left Me:
- Robert Burns: My Eppie Macnab:
- Robert Burns: Johnie Lad, Cock Up Your Beaver:
- Robert Burns: Damon And Sylvia: Fragment
- Robert Burns: Lovely Polly Stewart:
- Robert Burns: You’re Welcome, Willie Stewart:
- Robert Burns: Epigram At Brownhill Inn:
- Robert Burns: The Gallant Weaver:
- Robert Burns: Verses On The Destruction Of The Woods Near Drumlanrig:
More external links (open in a new tab):
Doska or the Board – write anything
Search engines:
Yandex – the best search engine for searches in Russian (and the best overall image search engine, in any language, anywhere)
Qwant – the best search engine for searches in French, German as well as Romance and Germanic languages.
Ecosia – a search engine that supposedly… plants trees
Duckduckgo – the real alternative and a search engine that actually works. Without much censorship or partisan politics.
Yahoo– yes, it’s still around, amazingly, miraculously, incredibly, but now it seems to be powered by Bing.
Parallel Translations of Poetry
The Poetry Repository – an online library of poems, poetry, verse and poetic works
