AS GOOD AS GOLD!
As Good as Gold!
So it says on this poster!
Look closely!
It doesn't say what exactly.
It doesn't promise
To turn every girl into
A pretty Pierrette
Perched on a stool
Playing with a dolly!
A pretty Pierrette
Who, reading between the lines,
Will snaffle
A Pierot
Of unimaginable male
Pulchritude.
(Why else the
Flouncy skirt,
The pointed toes,
The oh so silky stockings?)
It leaves us to fill-in the spaces,
With girlish dreams.
It leaves us to deduce that
Somewhere in the picture,
There is 'the answer'.
It leaves us to glance idly
At the cigarettes lying close by.
They are in a yellow packet.
We think it 'as good as gold'.
They must be 'the answer'!
Hooray! We've found it!
Everlasting happiness!
I wonder if elderly ladies
Lying coughing
In hospitals world-wide,
Remember
Pierrette and her dolly.
I wonder if we, too,
Are reacting foolishly
To other, more sophisticated,
Lures,
That we do not even recognise.
Will we, too,
One day regret
The siren call
of
'As Good as Gold.'
