I'll speak for Pongo Pygmaeus
Poetry
Pushcart Nominee
and if you ask about his name I’ll say names are your invention, he has no name; I’ll
tell you Orang Utan means Old Man of the Forest but you stole his forest so now he is Old Man of Nowhere, exiled in his own home; and if you ask about his favourite
colours I’ll say the green of the mighty fig, how he carried its seeds to new places to rebuild his home before you ripped up his home with your metal predators, replaced it with your figless trees; or the many reds of his brothers’ coats because he had no need
to hide before you came; and if you ask about him being the most intelligent of the
great apes second only to Man I’ll ask you if you could make a tree nest with bunk
beds or stun a catfish with a stick; and if you ask about tools I’ll say his tools are to
find food while yours are for destruction; and if you ask me why he forces himself
upon a female in heat I’ll remind you how you stole his sister, shaved her, chained her
to a stake so you could rape her for Ringgit; and if you ask about his goals for the next five years I’ll have just one word
Rachel Davies is widely published in journals and anthologies and has been a prize-winner in several poetry competitions. Her debut pamphlet, Every Day I Promise Myself, was published by 4Word Press in December 2020. She is co-ordinator of the Poetry Society Sanza for East Manchester and Tameside. She has an MA in Creative Writing and a PhD in contemporary poetry, both from Manchester Metropolian University.