Shipped from Skull Island for display,

giant ape Kong escapes and carries

a blonde up the Empire State Building.

(TiVo synopsis)

Not in the middle but at the end of things,

I lie broken on this New York sidewalk

Outside of Longchamps Restaurant, just closing.

How I got here I’m really not too sure.

My mind blurs like the mists on Skull Island .

Where I once was King and they called me Kong.

No ambulances free to care for me:

Humans first, gorilla road kill last,

Like always, law of the Asphalt Jungle.

Where are you, Barbie Fay? You exited

Without a word before the movie ended.

Are you back safe but unhappy with

Your peewee lover in that fleabag room

I pulled you out of with my hairy arm?

Not coming to gape at what’s left of Kong

Who swept you up to the top of the world?

Is Beauty now too busy for the Beast

Broken on the sidewalk, outside Longchamps?

II

You were a WOW of an improvement on

The “Brides of Kong” they’d been sacrificing

Since I became too tall for the NBA

And Momma Kong ran off with a T-Rex,

So I tore you free of that altar like

A child unwrapping Barbie on Christmas.

Eager, unsure of how to play with you,

I held you gently in the palm of my hand,

My pinky larger than your whole body.

III

“Misfits, The Movie” keeps running through my mind.

If I had been downsized to pygmy scale

Like Mighty Joe Young – Fay, you and I

Could have done some great things together, on

And off screen. As it turned out, they settled

For Beauty and the Beast, G-Rated,

Where size never matters, nor consummation,

And lots of phony stop-motion battles

With dummy dinosaurs and rubber serpents –

I, Kong, pummeling, overpowering

The pre-historic predators – giant

Gorilla hero of every girl’s dreams.

IV

Why I fell for that gas bomb trick or how

The hell they dragged me to New York City

I can’t remember but suddenly I’m

Up on a stage, restrained by some puny

Chrome steel chains and shackles which can’t

Hold down even a Skull Island grasshopper,

And there are all of these peewee humans:

The men dressed like penguins, the women

Like ostriches waiting to be plucked

By the gorilla of their dreams. They bring

Out Barbie Fay, dressed in the sexiest dress

The Hays Office would allow and I’m propelled

Right out of the chains towards her – still not sure

Of what to do with her. I knock down the walls

Of buildings, like Samson, not caring if

All falls down on me, rampage on the streets,

Play spaghetti with elevated trains,

Stomp on cars, hurl humans into the air,

Thrust my huge hairy arm in and out

Of bedrooms, pulling out blonde after blonde,

Discarding them like banana peels,

Until Eureka! I find my Barbie Fay

And together we start downtown, looking

For the highest place to get high on this island:

The Chrysler Building -no way I’ll rest my rump

Upon that spire – Empire State Building!

There she is, ready to be mounted, conquered,

Story by story, built right to my scale,

Barbie Fay in my right hand, up, up, up –

I’m at the top and those gnatmobile biplanes

With their peashooters start pestering me,

I swat down one of them but those pinprick

Machine-gun bullets start taking their toll,

I have to lay down my Barbie Fay, who

For all her writhing and screaming was

Looking forward to some kind of ravaging.

The planes keep pestering, I get dizzier

And dizzier, and down,

down,

down

I crash

And break upon this sidewalk! The End now:

Police lieutenant boasting, “Planes got him.”

Armstrong correcting, “Beauty killed the Beast.”

I moan, “Wrong, gravity.” but no one hears –

And Fay does not come by to say farewell.