Friends' Photos by Ruth Fainlight

[thefairyreel.livejournal.com]

We all looked like goddesses
and gods, glowing and smooth, sheathed
from head to foot by a golden essence
that glistens and refracted its aura
of power- the wonderful ichor called youth.

We moved as easily as dolphins
surging out of the ocean,
cleaving massed tons of transparent water
streaming away in swathes of bubbling
Silver like the plasm of life.

Still potent from those black and white
photos, the palpable electric
charge between us, like the negative
and positive poles of a battery,
or the fingers of Adam and God.

We were beautiful, without exception.
I could hardly bear to look at those
old albums, to see the lost glamour
we never noticed when we were
first together- when we were young.


and a request - could anybody recommend poems on advertising, status, consumerism or youth culture? am writing a paper for a module on interpreting consumerism and am trying to cast a wide net to find something I'm interested in to work with. Thank you in advance!

Comments

[orange-fell.livejournal.com]

Not a poem, but the novel The Savage Girl (http://www.amazon.com/Savage-Girl-Alex-Shakar/dp/0060935235) by Alex Shakar might be useful for your project. It's cynical about consumerism in a weird, funny way.

I also know of a poem about relationships failing that's set up as a survey by a waterbed company, but I don't have it here.