23. Poetry by Richard Stevenson

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Editor’s Note: It has become a long-running tradition for me to break my own batch-limit rules with Richard’s wildly entertaining poetry, encompassing kyōka, tanka, senryu, and scifaiku — with most taking a lighthearted kidlit approach to fun with words. I think that Richard’s established brand of poetry is refreshing and quite unique.

Grecian dolphin? & other poems

Grecian dolphin?
Corfu Island Creature?
or some smiley rubber
boat dock bumper?
think T-shirts, tourist dollars

alas, the moa
has more than a neck in sand –
his four-metre bod
went all-in when it came
to choosing wings or sod

the Allegewi
like their victims chewy
overweight humans
need not worry or despair
just bring extra underwear

Caddy hadda hunch
the herring school was about
to break for lunch
thought, I’m famished too, why not
pop by for a bite or two?

Tazuma’s got lots
of room to zoom around
in Shuswap Lake
doesn’t need to surface near
homo s and his bazooka breed

Bigfoot’s feet require
shoes with lights and license plates
the better to see him
when he beats an asphalt path
to scarf roadside blackberries

Abbagoochie
stole a smooch,
played hootchie coochie
emptied his pooch
as soon vamoosed

De Loy’s Ape
sat on a crate
mouth agape
propped by a stake
willy to the weather

Could be a gibbon
with tail hidden
or a new world ape!
Go on and gawk! mock away!
De Loy’s in a crate either way

the Orang Bati
doesn’t need a tint or perm
gives two hoots whether
her boobs sag or belly’s firm
she’s fine with her slow decline

Old Ned doesn’t pose
for cell phone shots much these days
Canoe burritos
give him cramps and gas –
Fibreglass too hard to pass.

sitting in his cave
a sasquatch with a cell phone
watches sasquatch porn

Does Big Rhodey
have enough tuliewumps?
Homeless ‘squatches now?

Dire wolf’s in dire straits –
eat more humans or end up
stuffed or in a zoo.

mane-less man-eater
lions lay low in the veldt –
have sumptuous pelts

Sasquatch T-shirt:
“Social Distancing
World Champion”

Nabau’s on the nod.
At one hundred feet long
best let him sleep.

homo sapiens –
earth’s biggest
viral load

Megaconda
likes to hug with all his coils –
is fond of goils too

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(Linked verse. For John Kirk.)

A petroglyph
would have it so:
Sproat Lake Monster lives!

Ain’t doin’ stunts though:
a pair of parallel humps
and anal asterisk adieu.

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