On the mundane lives of cryptids

I’m part of a writing group called Homework. The group started online during the first lockdown in 2020 as a way for local writers to meet up and create during all the pandemic uncertainty. 

At the start of each month, we set ourselves a writing prompt. Then, we go away and write, and meet back up at the end of the month to share the results.

I joined the group in 2024, and it's been such a lovely part of my routine. I really like the accountability of being invited to produce something new once a month. 

Back in May, the prompt was “the dog (or other animal) on the bus”. 

I struggled for ages on this one, trying to come up with an interesting angle, a new perspective, but to no avail. 

Then, during an idle afternoon of random googling, I came across a recording of the Patterson-Gimlin Film from 1967, which proports to capture a Bigfoot wandering through the forests of Northern California. As I watched the film, I wondered to myself where the Bigfoot in the video was going in such a hurry. Could he, perhaps, be hurrying off to catch a bus?

And so, a poem was born!   


Sasquatch takes the bus
After the images taken from the Patterson-Gimlin Film (1967)

In a sun-bleached, time-worn film still
he’s walking with long-stride 
arm-swinging purpose,

the dilapidated bus shelter 
squatting just out of frame;
the crumpled timetable 
in his fur-lined pocket;
the exact change clutched 
in his half-closed fist. 

Conspiracists decry his barely visible Seiko
watch – a sure sign he’s no more 
than a man in a monkey suit.

But aren’t we all putting on a performance 
sometimes? Aren’t we all running late
for something, throwing swift backwards
glances to the unseen camera as we 
hurtle, pell-mell, towards the road? 

As the recording pauses
his ride pulls up to the kerb,
coins clatter in the machine 
and he takes his ticket in articulate fingers,
bound for the top deck,
his musky scent no more potent
than anyone else’s. 

At a seat by the stairwell, 
he folds himself beside 
a nurse in hospital scrubs, 

nods a thank you
as she moves her handbag, 
knees concertinaed to his chest, 
AirPods in, another inconvenience avoided, 
without a moment to spare.

Outside, the world begins to blur
with momentum and the filmmakers 
dismantle their tripod – 

proof can be a tricky business,
whichever way you cut it. 
They will try again tomorrow. 




A still from the Patterson-Gimlin Film (1967)



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