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:
- Spring Rain by Sara Teasdale
- On The High Price Of Fish by William Cowper
- Song of Myself by Sir Walter Raleigh
- Омар Хайям – Небо кушак, что облек изнуренный мой стан
- The Markets Are Down 2 Amp A Quarter
- Introspection In Evening poem – Amy Cavanaugh poems | Poems and Poetry
- Владимир Высоцкий – Хрущёву
- Наум Коржавин – От судьбы никуда не уйти
- Алексей Плещеев – Весна
- Николай Гумилев – Мадагаскар
- Гавриил Державин – Оковы
- Motel Pool by P. K. Page
- Natural History by Sylvia Plath
- Laodamia by William Wordsworth
- O fortunatus nimium, etc., a translation out of Virgil by Abraham Cowley
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
- A Big Idea? by Satish Verma
- Twice Shy by Seamus Heaney
- The Tollund Man by Seamus Heaney
- The Perch by Seamus Heaney
- The Otter by Seamus Heaney
- The Harvest Bow by Seamus Heaney
- The Grauballe Man by Seamus Heaney
- The Early Purges by Seamus Heaney
- Testimony by Seamus Heaney
- Strange Fruit by Seamus Heaney
- Song by Seamus Heaney
- Rite of Spring by Seamus Heaney
- Requiem for the Croppies by Seamus Heaney
- Postscript by Seamus Heaney
- Personal Helicon by Seamus Heaney
- Mossbawn: Two Poems in Dedication by Seamus Heaney
- Mid-Term Break by Seamus Heaney
- Lovers on Aran by Seamus Heaney
- Limbo by Seamus Heaney
- Keeping Going by Seamus Heaney
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
