A poem about a gorilla for World Poetry Day: 21 March 2017

I was reading a poetry book today, World Poetry Day, and came across a gorilla poem – surprisingly – and just in time for the 2017 re-make of the King Kong movie called Kong: Skull Island. It is set in 1973 and is full of action, fire, helicopters, and the giant gorilla. This is the fourth in the Hollywood series of Kong movies – and there have also been several Japanese movies on Kong and Godzilla.

This poem is dedicated to all of the King Kong movies: King Kong (1933), starring Fay Wray and Robert Armstrong; King Kong (1976) with Jessica Lange and Jeff Bridges; King Kong (2005), starring Naomi Watts and Jack Black; and Kong: Skull Island (2017), starring Alison Brie and Tom Hiddleston.

In the original King Kong movie, the gorilla is transported to New York, escapes, climbs the Empire State Building, and fights off military helicopters trying to kill him to save the people of the city.

GORILLA OF LOVE – by Lynn Coffin

Decades ago, when my son was six,

He wrote the first of not many poems: (I quote)

  Way down South, there is a bone

  and in that bone, there is a stone

  and in that stone, there is a moan

  and in that moan, there is

             A GORILLA!                      (end quote)

Yesterday, someone in my mind/body study group said,

I quote, ‘’In difficult relationships, there is contention,

and in that contention, there is anger,

and in that anger, there is sadness,

and in that sadness, there is love.’’ (end quote)

So – deep in our hearts where it’s warm and sticky,

there’s a bone of contention,

in that bone of contention, there’s a stone of anger,

in that stone of anger, there’s a moan of sadness,

and in that moan of sadness, is the bare-breasted, hair-chested,

         GORILLA OF LOVE!

He may be found clinging to the Empire State Building

of attachment, but bring in the planes of Enlightenment,

and he’ll let go – And instead of falling (this is a fantasy, you know)

he’ll take to the skies with cloth-like, moth-like, Goth-like wings,

and come again each Christmas with a sleigh-full of toys,

this hairy, scary, watch out and be wary, he’ll make you want to marry

         GORILLA OF LOVE!

The poem, Gorilla of Love, is in Lyn Coffin’s 2017 booklet of poems, ‘’Joseph Brodsky was Joseph Brodsky.’’ Coffin is also the translator of Georgia’s epic poem ‘The Knight in the Panther Skin’ (2015) written by 12th century poet Shota Rustaveli.

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).