La Chevelure

I always tell myself that I will be fine and he won't bother me as long as I don't have to actively acknowledge his existence. I live two blocks from him but I never see him. This is fine with me. It keeps me from getting terribly upset all the time. I was on my back patio last night eating dinner with my housemates and he walked by with her. This was not so terrible in and of itself but the real problem came when I decided to shout at them. They didn't hear me, but I felt weird for a few hours afterward. I don't really care about him anymore. I just hate the feelings I get when I am around him. Those nights full of hard liquor and sweat, when we would sit in the same smoke-clouded room refusing to speak to each other directly and nervously playing with words in the hopes that we would somehow wander home in the same direction. I don't want to be part of that world, but sometimes I miss it.

And now a song for a man who shaves his head.

Hair
Oh fleece, foaming all the way over the neckline,
Oh curls, oh perfume charged with nonchalance!
Ecstasy! In order to populate the obscure alcove this night
With sleeping memories in that hair,
I would like to stir it in the air like a handkerchief.

Languid Asia and burning Africa,
All a distant world, absent, almost dead,
Lives in your profundities, aromatic forest!
As the other spirits sail on the music,
Mine, oh my love! floats on your perfume.

I will go there where tree and man, full of sap,
Swoon lengthily beneath the heat of the climates;
Strong tresses, you are the swells that kidnap me!
You contain, ebony sea, dazzling dream
Of sails, of rowers, of pennants and masts:

A ringing harbor where my soul can drink
In great waves the perfume, the sound and the color
Where the vessels, gliding through the gold and the moiré
They open their arms wide to embrace the glory
Of the pure sky where the eternal warmth quivers.

I will plunge my head amorous with intoxication
Into the black ocean where the other is locked away;
And my subtle spirit which the rolling caresses
Will know to meet you again, oh fertile laziness,
Infinite rocking of odorous pleasure!

Blue hair, house spread with shadows
You return to me the blue of the sky immense and round;
On the fluffy edges of your twisted locks
Ardently I intoxicate myself with the staggering scent
Of coconut oil, of musk and tar.

Long time! Always! My hand in your heavy mane
Will sow ruby, pearl and sapphire,
So that to my desire you are never dull!
Are you not the oasis where I dream, and the flask
Where I smell in long lines the wine of memory?

La Chevelure
Ô toison, moutonnant jusque sur l'encolure!
Ô boucles! Ô parfum chargé de nonchaloir!
Extase! Pour peupler ce soir l'alcôve obscure
Des souvenirs dormant dans cette chevelure,
Je la veux agiter dans l'air comme un mouchoir!

La langoureuse Asie et la brûlante Afrique,
Tout un monde lointain, absent, presque défunt,
Vit dans tes profondeurs, forêt aromatique!
Comme d'autres esprits voguent sur la musique,
Le mien, ô mon amour! nage sur ton parfum.

J'irai l&agrave-bas où l'arbre et l'homme, pleins de sève,
Se pâment longuement sous l'ardeur des climats;
Fortes tresses, soyez la houle qui m'enlève!
Tu contiens, mer d'ébène, un éblouissant rêve
De voiles, de rameurs, de flammes et de mâts:

Un port retentissant où mon âme peut boire
À grands flots le parfum, le son et la couleur
Où les vaisseaux, glissant dans l'or et dans la moire
Ouvrent leurs vastes bras pour embrasser la gloire
D'un ciel pur où frémit l'éternelle chaleur.

Je plongerai ma tête amoureuse d'ivresse
Dans ce noir océan où l'autre est enfermé;
Et mon esprit subtil que le roulis caresse
Saura vous retrouver, ô féconde paresse,
Infinis bercements du loisir embaumé!

Cheveux bleus, pavillon de ténèbres tendues
Vous me rendez l'azur du ciel immense et rond;
Sur les bords duvetés de vos mèches tordues
Je m'enivre ardemment des senteurs confondues
De l'huile de coco, du musc et du goudron.

Longtemps! toujours! ma main dans ta crinière lourde
Sèmera le rubis, la perle et le saphir,
Afin qu'à mon désir tu ne sois jamais sourde!
N'es-tu pas l'oasis où je rêve, et la gourde
Où je hume à longs traits le vin du souvenir?