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nycstar
April 8th, 2010, 04:37 PM
Well, I'm off to Orlando tomorrow morning and will miss logging into LHC. I'll be back Monday night.
In the meantime, I thought it'd be fun to share some literature about hair: poems, quotes, short story referrals. I'd like to share my most favorite prose poem. I hope you like it (I absolutely adore this poem.. I get goosebumps when I read it)!

A Hemisphere in Her Hair


by Baudelaire


Let me breathe in for a long, long time the scent of your hair, let me plunge my entire face into it, like a thirsty man into the water of a spring, and let me wave it in my hand like a scented handkerchief, to shake memories into the air.
If you could only know all that I see! All that I feel! All that I hear in your hair! My soul voyages upon perfume just as the souls of other men voyage upon music.
Your hair contains a dream in its entirety, filled with sails and masts; it contains great seas whose monsoons carry me toward charming climes, where space is bluer and deeper, where the atmosphere is perfumed by leaves and by human skin.
In the ocean of your hair, I glimpse a port swarming with melancholy songs, with vigorous men of all nations, and with ships of all shapes silhouetting their refined and complicated architecture against an immense sky in which eternal warmth saunters.
In the caresses of your hair, I find again the languors of long hours passed upon a divan, in the cabin of a beautiful ship, rocked by the imperceptible rolling of the port, between pots of flowers and refreshing jugs.
In the ardent hearth of your hair, I breathe the odor of tobacco mixed with opium and sugar; in the night of your hair, I see the infinity of tropical azur resplendent; on the downy shores of your hair I get drunk on the combined odors of tar, of musk, and of coconut oil.
Let me bite into your heavy black tresses for a long time. When I nibble at your elastic hair, it seems to me that I am eating memories.

1nuitblanche
April 8th, 2010, 04:49 PM
Nice! Thanks for sharing :-)

dropinthebucket
April 9th, 2010, 06:59 AM
The poem is beautiful - thank you, Nycstar!

It would be great to start a list/thread of "hair lit"!!! (maybe it could go into a VIT-off-topic if it gets long enough?)

one to add: Keats, La Belle Dame Sans Merci

nycstar
April 15th, 2010, 10:06 PM
The poem is beautiful - thank you, Nycstar!

It would be great to start a list/thread of "hair lit"!!! (maybe it could go into a VIT-off-topic if it gets long enough?)

one to add: Keats, La Belle Dame Sans Merci

That's a great idea!! Thanks for sharing as well :)

sarah061
April 15th, 2010, 10:40 PM
Nycstar thank you so much for posting that poem, it's gorgeous! Baudelaire wrote another really similar sounding one called "Her Hair" - http://poemhunter.com/poem/her-hair/
Sounds like he was a serious long hair fan :)

naereid
April 16th, 2010, 02:43 AM
Just yesterday I remembered a poem by one of my country's greatest poets - Comfort of Hair. I don't think a translation is available, though. Here's a link to the original anyway (http://hr.wikisource.org/wiki/Utjeha_kose).

It talks about a man observing his deceased love before her burial, noting how everything about her is dead now - her eyes, her breath, her hands. Yet her hair still seems alive, which brings him great comfort. It seems to whisper to him that he should not worry, for even in death there are dreams.


When I nibble at your elastic hair, it seems to me that I am eating memories.
I love this line. :o

He even mentions coconut oil. Baudelaire sure knows what he's talking about. :grnbiggri

nycstar
April 16th, 2010, 05:25 AM
Haha.. most definitely. This was a smart man! I'm going to follow your link now to his other hair poem :) Thank you.

nycstar
April 16th, 2010, 05:26 AM
Nycstar thank you so much for posting that poem, it's gorgeous! Baudelaire wrote another really similar sounding one called "Her Hair" - http://poemhunter.com/poem/her-hair/
Sounds like he was a serious long hair fan :)

Haha.. most definitely. This was a smart man! I'm going to follow your link now to his other hair poem :) Thank you.

nycstar
April 16th, 2010, 05:28 AM
Just yesterday I remembered a poem by one of my country's greatest poets - Comfort of Hair. I don't think a translation is available, though. Here's a link to the original anyway (http://hr.wikisource.org/wiki/Utjeha_kose).

It talks about a man observing his deceased love before her burial, noting how everything about her is dead now - her eyes, her breath, her hands. Yet her hair still seems alive, which brings him great comfort. It seems to whisper to him that he should not worry, for even in death there are dreams.


I love this line. :o

He even mentions coconut oil. Baudelaire sure knows what he's talking about. :grnbiggri


Yes! I noticed this also. It's so interesting. I'd like to know who he used as a muse...

nycstar
April 16th, 2010, 05:29 AM
Nycstar thank you so much for posting that poem, it's gorgeous! Baudelaire wrote another really similar sounding one called "Her Hair" - http://poemhunter.com/poem/her-hair/
Sounds like he was a serious long hair fan :)

Sorry for double posting here...


I just read the poem--it's beautiful!! Thanks for the link.