Me, Tarzan
The camera pans from jungle to the plain:
while credits roll, we watch the plane ascend.
Young Weissmuller as Tarzan. Who was Jane?
Our hero scans the skies through clouds of pain
for her he’d fought gorillas to defend;
then, misty-eyed, the jungle from the plain,
his leafy kingdom where with might and main
he’d finally won her heart at story’s end.
He’d told her. He was Tarzan. She was Jane,
his lovely leading lady – he, her swain,
half man, half child, half ape, as Burroughs penned,
yet now he’s in the jungle, not the plane.
We’d searched for signs of intellect, in vain;
in the buff, with Cheetah for a friend,
he’d known two words, “Me, Tarzan.” Still, Jane
hoped secretly some Greystoke might remain
and show up in a sequel round the bend.
In London’s social jungle she’d explain
the finer points of Tarzan dating Jane.
by Ed Shacklee
Editor’s Note: I watched a lot of the Tarzan television show as a girl, and this poem calls to mind the sense of delight I felt about those stories. Also, the iambic lines and rhyme in this villanelle are delicious.
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