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:
- In Memoriam A. H. H.: 5. Sometimes I Hold it half a Sin poem – Lord Alfred Tennyson poems
- Grace Before Song poem – Ezra Pound poems
- Иида Дакоцу – Розу покинув
- if_i_were_king.html
- The Railroad by William Barnes
- Elegy V. Anno Aet. 20. On The Approach Of Spring (Translated From Milton) by William Cowper
- The Café Filtre by Paul Blackburn
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Коса
- Владимир Маяковский – Увеличивается ли питание Москвы… (Главполитпросвет №234)
- Slough poem – John Betjeman poems
- Article Writing – Revealed – 4 Priceless Methods to Make Money Through Article Writing
- Winter Violets poem – Alfred Austin
- Corinna, from Athens, to Tanagra by Walter Savage Landor
- A Boundless Moment by Robert Frost
- Ingrateful Beauty Threatened by Thomas Carew
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 Hedge Of Rubber Trees poem – Amy Clampitt poems | Poems and Poetry
- On The Disadvantages Of Central Heating poem – Amy Clampitt poems | Poems and Poetry
- A Catalpa Tree On West Twelfth Street poem – Amy Clampitt poems | Poems and Poetry
- Nothing Stays Put poem – Amy Clampitt poems | Poems and Poetry
- Fog poem – Amy Clampitt poems | Poems and Poetry
- Exmoor poem – Amy Clampitt poems | Poems and Poetry
- Easter Morning poem – Amy Clampitt poems | Poems and Poetry
- Beach Glass poem – Amy Clampitt poems | Poems and Poetry
- A Silence poem – Amy Clampitt poems | Poems and Poetry
- A Hermit Thrush poem – Amy Clampitt poems | Poems and Poetry
- A Hedge Of Rubber Trees poem – Amy Clampitt poems | Poems and Poetry
- A Catalpa Tree On West Twelfth Street poem – Amy Clampitt poems | Poems and Poetry
- Joe Biden, a Ghazal
- The sky has never seen such a moon
- Ghazal by Agha Shahid Ali
- Joe Biden’s Torment
- Insolent couplets
- An Insolent Jew
- Soliloquy In A Tub poem – Amy Cavanaugh poems | Poems and Poetry
- Reviving My Feminity poem – Amy Cavanaugh poems | Poems and Poetry
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