LitRev comp 'Hair' by 27th November
 

This is a nice subject for a poem, isn't it? The downside is that there's bound to be a huge postbag, so the chances of winning are...
no, I mustn't be pessimistic; that's dumb (but what did you expect from a blonde? :rolleyes:)

(Reminder: 24 lines max.)

Jayne

From Literary Review Deputy Editor Tom Fleming:

Next month’s subject is ‘hair’. Entries must rhyme and scan and reach these offices by 27 November.

The Literary Review
44 Lexington Street
London W1F 0LW

editorial@literaryreview.co.uk

Ah, I knew about this a couple of days ago and got myself a head start.

Hair

As eunuchs praise the love they never had,
Bald as an egg, I sing my TRICHIAD.

The hair that gave the Spartan warriors power,
The hair Rapunzel tumbled from her tower,
The hair that sprouts unbidden under arms,
The hair that grows on masturbators' palms,
The buttered hair of the ferocious Tartars,
The holy hair of Jesus' Saints and Martyrs,
The raw, red hair of vagabonds and bad men,
The hair that grows beneath the skins of madmen,
The long, blonde, braided hair of New Age cuties,
The hobbit hair that turns their feet to bootees,
The hair the sirens combed upon the rocks,
The pallid, hairy legs of kilted Jocks,
The hair Porphyria's lover wound around
Her neck to murder her without a sound,
Crisp, curly hair Lord Byron mourned the loss of,
Heroic hair Delilah proved the boss of,
Soft hair hot walnut shells scoured from the thighs
Of Roman boys,or else Suetonius lies,
Harsh, hideous hair of devils, rank and rough,
Light lamplit hair on girlish arms... enough!

Though finer lines Tom Eliot never penned,
My TRICHOMANIA here must have an end.

John, it seems to me that what you've got there is filthy .... lucre. (In case my meaning wasn't clear - BRILLIANT!)

I grow old and depraved,
I must keep my trousered ankles shaved.

I dare you to shave a peach.

Nah, you're right, I wouldn' t dare.

I have seen the mermaids shaving, peach to peach.

Hair today. . .
 

Hair Hair!

Harvesting hair from my ears patiently,
I glimpse the young man that used to be me.

Tweezing the hair from my imposing nose,
I know where the hair from my head now grows.

Trimming my chin hair, now turned yellow,
I see that I am a ripening fellow.

Clipping my crotch hair, lank and grizzled,
I grasp that libido has finally fizzled!

Ralph

From adolescence
To the grave,
A feller needs his
Burma-Shave.

John, I think this is wonderful, and it may have effectively killed the continuation of this thread.

Thank you Susan, but it should not. There are more ways of skinning a cat, you know. Not that I would dream of employing even one. I am talking to the cat in the corner. She is unconvinced and pushes her headless mouse in my direction.

And thank you too, Brian. One cannot have too much of praise from distinguished sources. Only a Hobbit would need to shave his ankles. Or perhaps a snake. You're the snake's ankles, as P G Wodehouse might have put it.

John, just a couple of small points.

I've always understood that Suetonius is pronounced "Sway-toe-nyus", but you seem to be counting either "Su-e" or "ni-us" as two syllables. Maybe it's the correct Latin pronunciation? If not, you could simply make it

Of Roman boys, or else Suetonius lies

And I'm having difficulty construing the two following lines. Is there some punctuation missing (e.g. a comma after "rough"), or am I being dense?

Harsh, hideous hair of devils, rank and rough
Light lamplit hair on girlish arms... enough!

Also, "Light lamplit hair" is on first reading a bit confusing (light/lit). What about "Fine" instead of "Light", or even "Fine downy hair"? But there I go, interfering again. And "lamplit" is very good.

There are so many splendid lines, but two of my favourites are:

The hair that grows on masturbators' palms

and

The pallid, hairy legs of kilted Jocks

Yet I wish I hadn't read it, because you seem to have snaffled the entire stock of historical hair, and now I can't think of anything for myself! "Brightness falls from the hair".

Brian

There was a boy, I knew him well,
Ye daughters of Delilah.
His hair was the thickest in all the dell
And long as the river Nile-a.

His hair grew furtive and fast and free,
Snatched up a tender bride
And bore her away for a century
Where the hirsute gods abide.

There they drank nectar and hoar-frost tea
And she combed his curls in a dream
And no one asked what became of the she
Whose locks were as rich as cream.

Thank you, Brian. If Suetonius is pronounced as you say, then I must make the emendation. It is. You are right. I have the opportunity to introduce the boy Caesar. Do you think that sounds better? Suetonius is obviously hinting that Octavian, like his father, was bisexual. Perhaps ALL Romans were bisexual except the VERY proper ones. Perhaps... No, I'd better not press on. Americans think all Englishmen are gay really. And Frenchmen also, come to that. Is it our accents? It can't be mine. I sound like a cockney taxi driver.

As for the other, there is a comma missing. I must put it back. What IS the Eliot quote? Do I have to look it up? I do.

But in the lamplight downed with light brown hair.

Lord, what a poem. He never did better, did he? He did more, but never better.

And thank you for making my poem better.

Yes - that's a cracker, John.

Lance - I think yours would be enlivened by emphasis on the oldy-ballady element that creeps in with Nile-a. (That took me jogging on Shakespeare's foot-path way and henting the occasional stile-a.)

I wonder about bride-o and abide-o? And dare you go with dream-um and cream-um, or can anyone else who thinks we're onto a good idea come up with a better repetend?

Thank you, Ann. And may I say, Lance, that I like yours.

Thanks, John and Ann. Ann, I'll give her her a think. I do love the old ballads.

Withdrawn for further reflection

John, I think I preferred "Roman boys", partly for the scansion, and partly because the reader (ignorant fool though he may be) may not know which Caesar is being referred to - not that it matters, bunch of pooftahs the lot of them.

And don't think that your accent renders you above suspicion. There are plenty of gay cockney taxi drivers.

I think you are right re 'Roman boys', Brian, and have altered it accordingly. Those hot walnut shells must have been very painful. What people will go through to stay young and beautiful. Re taxi drivers, probably.

A hair-raising adventure
 

It is hunting season now, and I can hear shots ringing out in the surrounding hills (even though this is not grizzly bear country) ...

Upon the grizzly’s heart, you train the crosshairs of your scope.
It’s the last day of the season, and this is your final hope;
The elevation, windage, and the range you quickly figure.
With bated breath, you deftly squeeze your Weatherby’s hair trigger.

Although the blast resembles that of cannon made by Krupp,
The bruin isn’t wounded, but he is a bit haired up,
And ambles to take cover in his stony mountain lair.
You ruefully acknowledge that you missed him by a hair.

That night, your barroom buddies all agree you are the best
At drinking up the fluids that grow hair upon one’s chest.
With dawning of the morning, just beyond that night before
You lie with bearded visage resting on the barroom floor.

There you repose, quite comatose; and as you lie in situ
You sip, to cure your pounding head, hair of the dog that bit you.
The lunchtime crowd steps over you, a listless groaning mass;
And says “That wasted hunter has a hair across his ass”.

Can anyone tell me if "wasted", in the sense of being heavily under the influence of alcohol or drugs, is used in the UK?

It surely is.

Thanks, John! You are the expert on all things British. It must be late at night, or the wee hours of the morning, over your way.

Comrade Ivan Speaks
(Moscow, 1968)

The Kommisars are irked at all this hair!
They want to pluck'em, shave 'em, cut and clip.
They're looking for a creamy upper lip,
Yul Brynner cue balls, skin that's smooth and bare.

In boiling vats we'll sizzle off the beard,
The ponytail, the hair that's five feet long,
Whatever gives offense. No country's strong
When everybody's hirsute and acting weird.

And the new thoughts? Smooth as a baby's face,
A sleeker math, a clean geometry,
Hairless parabolas from sea to sea.
A beardless logo for the soviet race.

Semitic types? Must check them at the gate.
We're after leanings, winks and wicked hints,
The furtive follicles of malcontents.
Unfettered hair will spoil an electorate.

That lunker on the bottom of the lake?
Clip him!--trawling for his Nietzchean crumb.
He may spout "love!" but he's basically a bum,
Drooling his tantras, a gnu-ru on the make.

Thus, we won't permit the stuff to grow.
Thus, will we snip: the hair has got to go! .

This might be a winner, Lance but some of it scans less smoothly than it might. They love a smooth scansion at the Lit Rev. Check out stanzas 3 and 4. The first line f stanza 5 is a foot too long. I don't like to encourage winners where I have a very hopeful horse in the race, but art is Long, don't you know.

Thanks, John. We'll put on our counting hat.

I love John and Douglas's above; and yours, Lance, is a novel notion I'd not come across! (Is it your playful fancy, or did the Leninists really view the leonine-locked as alien and with such a-leniency?)

However as a neophyte (I may be reading clumsily) I offer that:

S2L4 is a syllable long (could use "everyone's" instead of "everybody's"?)
S4L4 ditto (could use "spoils" instead of "will spoil"?)
S5L3 ditto (I trip up on "he's"; could it maybe be left out?)
S5L4 ditto (maybe instead "A tantra-drooling gnu-ru on the make" ?)

Your "gnu-ru" I like; an imagination-catching and concise coining!

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

My forehead is expanding but it’s not by growth of brain;
My hairline is receding, that is all.
Hair-washing’s less demanding and to dry it is no strain.
I find no need for combing it at all.

When autumn comes I feel the chill far sharper than before.
Snug woolly hat is very necessary;
A haircut (bristly-short) aids its adherence all the more,
Like Velcro, though wind be e’er so blustery.

As if in compensation, other hair-crops grow apace -
Ears Midas-tufted, nose-wires, Brillo brows.
My beard is most conspicuous: a bramble-tangled place –
Or ‘barbed wire-’ maybe? Steel-grey, anyhow.

Do I regret the loss of locks of yesteryear? Why yes;
I’ve dreamed I run my fingers through them – true!
If sleep’s The Great Restorer, my hair may grow back, I guess -
If I should dose with doze, day and night through.

I find no fright hair-raising now - that cliché has worn thin;
Too scant my pelage to substantiate it.
And if I were a Samson, I’d be far too weak to win;
My baldness, Philistines would celebrate it.

I’ve heard our days and hairs too are celestially numbered –
God knows where Heaven keeps each person’s tally!
Is some guardian angel with each follicle’s care cumbered?
I guess I may find out… eventually!


(I realise the repetition at the end of S1L4. Would
"I find the need for combing it is small."
be better? or sound less natural?)

I think your second line 4 is better. I love your by-line Fife. For the benefit of our transatlantic friends let me explain. Fife is what Macbeth was thane of and is just over the water from Edinburgh. A fine place.

Actually, John, it was Macduff - Macbeth was Thane of Glamis. But perhaps Graham also has a holiday home in Cawdor? I see that he is already King ...

Hello John. Love it! Love it! Love it! I love the way this all rolls off the tongue. I read it and was instantly taken back to my puberty with....."The hair that grows on masturbators' palms", I wonder how many male readers quickly looked at their own guilty hands(just to make sure) whilst reading that particular line? Your poem started to fire me up, but while reading it, I also came to the conclusion that you'd covered all the bases. That said, I could only come up with,
Hair today, gone tomorrow,
youthfully hirsute, then bald with sorrow
the comb is discarded for lack of employment
but kept anyway, for periodic rememberance.......I'll come back to this again I think. B.
Just read it again John with regard to the line....

The hobbit hair that turns their feet to bootees,
would it not flow better with....
The hobbit hair that turns their feet into bootees, just a thought. B.

No, I'm afraid it wouldn't. John's line is an iambic pentameter with a feminine ending. Your suggestion would simply destroy the metre.

Hello Brian, I'd like to say I understand your answer, but the simple truth is, I don't! I think I'd better go and swot up on what I thought was my native language, and find out what it is I need to know. Thanks for the reply.B.

Of course you are right, Brian A. I thought of Lady MacB. The Thane of Fife had a wife....

Wasn't the late Queen Mother Thane of Glamis, or Thaness.

Brian H. Thank you sir.

Graham

I do allow substitutions. Thanks for a thorough read.

Lance

Oh, rue the day when crowning thatch
No longer seems quite up to scratch
And follicles go on the blink
So flowing locks begin to shrink!

As passing years reveal your scalp –
A shiny pale pink mini-Alp,
Worse still,, a sort of wrinkled corm –
You find they kept you dry and warm.

Ah, Youth, with no need for a cap
To hide an ever-growing gap
Or painfully re-seeded pate
Like Signor B’s of recent date!

Alas, an unknown wit once wrote
Wise words that always get my vote:
Ideal for town and country wear,
There is no substitute for hair.

Jerome,
This is great, remininiscent of Swift. One change you might consider is to substitute "Anon declared" for "As Anon said" in Line 14, to strengthen the meter, and support your excellent finishing couplet.

Many thanks, Douglas. Think you're right that the uncertain stressing of Anon disturbs the flow a bit. Will probably substitute 'someone' along with other minor tweaks elsewhere. I think the italics and 'someone said' and 'repeat' are enough to establish that I'm not claiming the final couplet as my own but a quote.

It stuck in my mind over many years from a university magazine where the lines it concluded were untited and unsigned as far as I remember.

I think the rest of it ran something like this:

When Samson smote the Philistines
His locks grew long and lush;
Delilah loved the shaggy lines
Of that body like a brush.

Remember, males, to let it grow
Upon the back and sides
So that the ladies long to know
The secret that it hides.

Suitable for town and country wear
There is no substitute for hair.

Come to think of it, the dates and place would fit Brian Allgar, as revealed in the recent thread by Duncan G.M.

Nah, Jerome, it weren't me. Even in them days, I knew how to scan, dinnI?

Pilgarlic’s Progress
(by their synonyms you shall know them)

Spartan, buff, ascetic, depilous,
In puris naturalibus,
Glabrous, smooth and lusterless,

With compensating growth of beard
Or Gymnosophical and sheared,
Peeled or shaven, lean and tonsured,

Sober, stark, uncomplicated,
Austere and unadulterated,
Undecked and underdecorated,

Frank, prosaic, neat, unfurbished,
Unembellished, plain, unvarnished,
Unpoetically ungarnished--

Euphemise, contrast, compare,
Aestheticize the bald and bare,
Yet nothing tops a head of hair—

Suppress testosterone with drugs,
Resort to wigs and plugs and rugs.
Truth is, bald men look like bugs.

We few, we few pilgarlic few!

Susan, that is lovely. But I do not look like a bug. Pilgarlic, eh?