Wednesday, 19 March 2014
Plastic Janes
By Arlene Corwin
I’m tempted -
(but not yet corrupted)
By Jane Fonda
Fondling camera, flirty:
“Look at me, I’m seventy,
I use creation such and such”
And aren’t I the cat’s pajamas
Just ‘too much,'
‘All that jazz’
(my daddy’s 20’s top clichés)
Skin so tight, so smooth and fine
And then, what do I find?
She’s joined the club,
Sabotaged my admiration,
Turned esteem into disdain,
Become a plastic Jane;
And I go back to being plain
old wrinkling me,
Which I admit takes courage
In these sickly days of being courted
By an industry [darkly] devoted
To the most unlikely medley
Of de-wrinkling reality:
Certain, inescapable, inevitable, preordained,
Unavoidable, to be expected end, big E.
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Crinkle, Crinkle little scar
How I wonder what you are?
Up above my lips you rise
Crows feet dancing by my eyes
Well I think they add some twinkles,
So I'm gonna love my wrinkles!
Posted by: joanne zimmermann | Wednesday, 19 March 2014 at 08:53 AM
Brave girl, Joanne!
Posted by: arlene corwin | Wednesday, 19 March 2014 at 12:04 PM
Good for you, Joannie. Arlene's poem echos delusion and acceptane. I think of Grace Paley's line "my well mapped face." Without lines the map is probably a desert, with lines it's a lived in place. Jane is a movie actress and has earned her dough in that most unreal of professions. We who live in the real world have the privilede of displaying our "well mapped faces."
Posted by: June Calender | Wednesday, 19 March 2014 at 01:27 PM
I can't really say I love my wrinkles. Spiritually speaking, the acceptance of them is a powerful way to get rid of vanity - always a good thing. But aesthetically speaking, it's not my favorite way of thinking of myself.
I do understand all the Plastic Janes out there. I'll just never be one.
Posted by: arlene corwin | Thursday, 20 March 2014 at 07:58 AM