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:
- Владимир Степанов – Праздник сентября
- Delinquency by Satish Verma
- Glory To God Alone by William Cowper
- Thought. by Walt Whitman
- Requiem for Two by Vinko Kalinić
- Юлия Жадовская – Я все хочу расслушать
- Hope by Walter William Safar
- My Daughter by Preeth Nambiar
- Mirage
- A Rare Guest poem – Alfred Austin
- Inflexible As Fate poem – Alfred Austin
- Николай Огарев – Тебе я счастья не давал довольно
- On a certain Lady at Court poem – Alexander Pope
- Ah, Are You Digging On My Grave? by Thomas Hardy
- On An Old Woman (From The Greek) by William Cowper
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
- Another Way Of Love by Robert Browning
- Andrea del Sarto by Robert Browning
- An Epistle Containing the Strange Medical Experience of Kar by Robert Browning
- Among the Rocks by Robert Browning
- Aix In Provence by Robert Browning
- Abt Vogler by Robert Browning
- A Woman’s Last Word by Robert Browning
- A Toccata Of Galuppi’s by Robert Browning
- A Serenade At The Villa by Robert Browning
- A Pretty Woman by Robert Browning
- A Lovers’ Quarrel by Robert Browning
- A Light Woman by Robert Browning
- A Grammarian’s Funeral by Robert Browning
- The Song of Death by Robert Burns
- The Ploughman’s Life by Robert Burns
- The Ordination by Robert Burns
- The Inventory by Robert Burns
- The Farewell to the Brethren of St. James’s Lodge by Robert Burns
- The Brigs of Ayr by Robert Burns
- Suppressed Stanzas of “The Vision” by Robert Burns
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