White fantasy about black sexuality
Tantalised the ‘civilised’ world with acceptability
Of the tanned noble savage
With old money and family estates
“Me Tarzan — you Jane”
His animalistic aggression made plain
Yet only made tame by white Jane
All these years in the jungle
Virginal—until Jane
No daughter of Chief or warrior Queen
Ignited a flame
This fantasy could not stretch to a white child
Lovingly raised by black people
The pen preferred a white lord reared by apes!
Mothering apes had more compassion
More compulsion to care
For an infant human
Than the non-human/non-animal original inhabitants of the land
Neither writer nor reader had any appetite for one morsel
Of humanity in black humans
The quill portrayed
A man that was raised by apes
A man preserved for his kind
Of which there was none until
Gentle Jane
The page could not support his innocence lost to
The hyper-sexualised African woman with exaggerated features
Who did not seek her own
But departed from nature to
consort with beasts
Polite society and easily offended
Delicate sensibilities
Demanded a respectable wait for Jane
To tame that jungle mane
NairobI Thompson (c) 2021
#NairobiThompsonPoetry #Poet247 #Tarzan #LordoftheJungle #TarzanandJane #Cheetah #KingoftheApes #WesternMyths #WhiteComfort
