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:
- I will Take an Egg Out of the Robin’s Nest. by Walt Whitman
- Sestina Otiosa by Sir Walter Raleigh
- Tell me not here, it needs not saying poem – Alfred Edward Housman
- The Milk-Maid O’ The Farm by William Barnes
- Валерий Брюсов – К большой медведице
- Song from Arcadia by Sir Philip Sidney
- Hex by Rachel McKibbens
- My Father’s Love Letters poem – Yusef Komunyakaa poems | Poetry Monster
- Robert Burns: Epigram On The Said Occasion [On A Henpecked Country Squire]:
- Prisoners poem – Yusef Komunyakaa poems | Poetry Monster
- The Amaranth by Vachel Lindsay
- Epigram Engraved on the Collar of a Dog Which I Gave to His Royal Highness poem – Alexander Pope poems | Poetry Monster
- The Prayer of Miriam Cohen by Rudyard Kipling
- Untitled #12 by Nijole Miliauskaite
- Юргис Балтрушайтис – Мой сад
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
- An Epistle To Robert Lloyd, Esq. by William Cowper
- An Epistle To Joseph Hill, Esq. by William Cowper
- An Epigram From Homer by William Cowper
- An Enigma by William Cowper
- An Attempt At The Manner Of Waller by William Cowper
- An Apology For Not Showing Her What I Had Wrote by William Cowper
- Addressed To Miss Macartney, Afterwards Mrs. Greville, On Reading The Prayer For Indifference by William Cowper
- Adam: A Sacred Drama. Act 5. by William Cowper
- Adam: A Sacred Drama. Act 4. by William Cowper
- Adam: A Sacred Drama. Act 3. by William Cowper
- Adam: A Sacred Drama. Act 2. by William Cowper
- Adam: A Sacred Drama. Act 1. by William Cowper
- A Tale. June 1793 by William Cowper
- A Tale, Founded On A Fact, Which Happened In January, 1779 by William Cowper
- A Song : The Sparkling Eye by William Cowper
- A Song : On The Green Margin by William Cowper
- A Riddle by William Cowper
- A Poetical Epistle To Lady Austen by William Cowper
- A Manual, More Ancient Than The Art Of Printing, And Not To Be Found In Any Catalogue by William Cowper
- A Figurative Description Of The Procedure Of Divine Love by William Cowper
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
