by Alden Nowlan
A mysterious naked man has been reported
on Cranston Avenue. The police are performing
the usual ceremonies with coloured lights and sirens.
Almost everyone is outdoors and strangers are conversing
excitedly
as they do during disasters when their involvement is
peripheral.
‘What did he look like? ‘ the lieutenant is asking.
‘I don’t know, ‘ says the witness. ‘He was naked.’
There is talk of dogs-this is no ordinary case
of indecent exposure, the man has been seen
a dozen times since the milkman spotted him and now
the sky is turning purple and voices
carry a long way and the children
have gone a little crazy as they often do at dusk
and cars are arriving
from other sections of the city.
And the mysterious naked man
is kneeling behind a garbage can or lying on his belly
in somebody’s garden
or maybe even hiding in the branches of a tree,
where the wind from the harbour
whips at his naked body,
and by now he’s probably done
whatever it was he wanted to do
and wishes he could go to sleep
or die
or take to the air like Superman.

A few random poems:
- on our conditioning by Raj Arumugam
- On Virtue by Phillis Wheatley
- Алексей Плещеев – Как солнце блещет ярко
- The Rape of the Lock: Canto 2 poem – Alexander Pope
- Thought. by Walt Whitman
- Aunt Jennifers Tigers
- Олег Григорьев – Пьет оса кисель из чашки
- A Man Young And Old: IX. The Secrets Of The Old by William Butler Yeats
- Robert Burns Country: In The Character Of A Ruined Farmer:
- Юргис Балтрушайтис – Элегия (Мысль в разлуке с вещим сном)
- Владимир Высоцкий – Мне каждый вечер зажигают свечи
- Dedication by Wole Soyinka
- Forgotten Language by Shel Silverstein
- four legs good, two legs badOwl Hoots and Grasshopper Sings by Raj Arumugam
- The Furies by Weldon Kees
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
- Hand Dark
- Granny
- Future Verdict
- Easter Decorations
- Dawnlight On The Sea
- Dawn
- Dawn God039s Sabbath
- Candle Lord
- By The Camp Fire
- By A Norfolk Broad
- Baptistry
- Aunt Dorothys Lecture
- At Sea
- At Long Last
- An Old Doll
- An Anniversary
- All Saints Day 1868
- All Saints Day 1867
- After Our Likeness
- A Story At Dusk
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