The Platypus Poacher

I am a poet. I write serious as well as humorous stuff. I also attend an open mic. session at the Bay School of the Arts which is held on the first Sunday of every month in Mathews , Va. A fellow writer has heard several of my humorous poems and approached me last month about writing a poem for her. "I have a great idea!" she said. "I listened to a speaker at a writers conference talk about the most interesting character that he had ever met. The man said that he was a Platypus Poacher, and I thought that you could do something silly with that terminology." I came home with my brain buzzing. I thought that I would take the approach of someone who is using a poaching process to cook the Platypus as opposed to someone who is illegally hunting them, and this is what came of it.

The Platypus Poacher

While traveling across Australia
the land of Koala and Roo
I met a man in the outback
stirring a big pot of stew.

It smelled like the gates of Hades
had opened to swallow us up.
He asked me to stay for awhile.
He said that later we'd sup.

I didn't want to offend him
but the thought of eating such stuff
made my stomach feel queasy!
The smell was sure bad enough.

I asked him what he was cooking
that made such an unpleasant smell.
What food could possibly be so strange
as to smell like the wide gates of hell?

"Platypus!" was his unblinking answer'
"I'm a platypus poacher by trade!
They say that I poach the best platypus
this side of old Adelaide!"

"I admit that it smells so horrendous,
but the taste is such a delight
that I guard it all through the day time.
My dingo will guard it tonight."

"With what do you poach it?" I asked him
"What goes into that foul smelling brew?
It smells like a pair of dirty gym socks
and a worn out old tennis shoe!"

"Sit down and I'll tell you." He told me.
The recipes handed down from my ma.
She made it quite often when I was a child,
and one day it killed poor ol' pa!"

"You take the spines from three cactus
and soak them in Kangaroo blood.
You boil this for some hours
then toss in a handful of mud."

" The next ingredient's a secret,
that really flavors the meat.
It's comprised of scalded Kangaroo milk,
and a jar of pickled pigs feet."

"The platypus that's the next thing
and then an old oaken plank.
You mix it all up together.
That's what you smelled so that stank!"

"I will poach it 'til early next Thursday.
This will surely soften the beak.
All and all it should poach in the sauce
for nearly a day and a week."

"Now comes the part that you wait for;
And me you'll remember to thank.
You throw the whole mess down the sewer,
and dine on the old oaken plank!"

Tom Neiger