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:
- You’re The Only One poem – Ygor Noblott poems | Poetry Monster
- “Call Not The Royal Swede Unfortunate” by William Wordsworth
- Огюст Барбье – Шекспир
- Владимир Маяковский – По городам Союза
- Robert Burns: I Murder Hate:
- Владимир Корнилов – Жара
- Fickle Fortune: A Fragment by Robert Burns
- Владимир Высоцкий – Про королевское шествие
- Владимир Высоцкий – Охота на кабанов
- Winter dusk at the railway halt by Sunil Sharma
- Dream With Clam-Diggers by Sylvia Plath
- The house where I was born (04) by Yves Bonnefoy
- Crow’s Fall by Ted Hughes
- I Would Live In Your Love by Sara Teasdale
- The Colloquy Beneath by Margaret Marie Hubbard
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
- Spring Rain by Sara Teasdale
- Sleepless by Sara Teasdale
- On A March Day by Sara Teasdale
- Oh You Are Coming by Sara Teasdale
- My Heart Is Heavy by Sara Teasdale
- Love And Death by Sara Teasdale
- Longing by Sara Teasdale
- Like Barley Bending by Sara Teasdale
- Let It Be Forgotten by Sara Teasdale
- Jewels by Sara Teasdale
- It Will Not Change by Sara Teasdale
- It Is Not A Word by Sara Teasdale
- In The End by Sara Teasdale
- If Death Is Kind by Sara Teasdale
- I Thought Of You by Sara Teasdale
- I Remembered by Sara Teasdale
- I Have Loved Hours At Sea by Sara Teasdale
- Houses Of Dreams by Sara Teasdale
- Guenevere by Sara Teasdale
- Gray Eyes by Sara Teasdale
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