“How long your hair has grown. You could strangle a man in it.”
— Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless
“How long your hair has grown. You could strangle a man in it.”
— Catherynne M. Valente, Deathless
“I could still be like a river of light in your arms.”
—
Clara Janés, tr. by Louis Burne, from “I Don’t Know,” written c. 1973
Fur coats over lingerie
Beaded hems
Pearl necklaces and sheer tights
Cigarette smoking
Rouge
Sharply penciled eyebrows
Vampy red lips
Silver pistols and embezzled clutches
Slivers of skin
Sparkles
Fringe and feathers
Tiered dresses
Headbands dripping in rhinestone and feathers
Gilded tiaras
Crystals and silk
Sheath dresses
Sky high stilettos
No flat shoes
No natural looks
“drunk on my own madness, I cried furiously, “Make life beautiful! Make life beautiful!””
— Charles Baudelaire, from Light-Gathering Poems: from “The Bad Glazier”
“dead owl by roadside lost doll head, one eye opened beyond the flown blue”
— Greg Sellers, haiku journal entry, 12 December 2018
“I’d love to see you in the moonlight with your head thrown back, and your body on fire.”
— Petra, When Night Is Falling
Nereids: nymphs of the Agean sea, the 50 daughters of Nereus and Doris. Depicted as beautiful girls crowned with branches of red coral and dressed in white silk robes trimmed with gold, but who went barefoot
Kelpie: shape-shifting water spirit inhabiting the lochs and pools of Scotland. Depicted as a melancholy dark-haired maiden balanced on a rock
Naiad : nymph, presiding over fountains, wells, springs, streams, brooks and other bodies of fresh water. Distinct from very ancient spirits that inhabited the still waters of marshes, ponds and lagoon-lakes
Rusalka: water spirit in Slavic folklore. Depicted as a young woman who lures young men, seduced by either her looks or her voice, into the depths of said waterways where she would entangle their feet with her long red hair and submerge them
Swan Maidens: mythical creature who shapeshifts from human form to swan form. key to the transformation is usually a swan skin, or a garment with swan feathers attached.
Selkies: maighdeann-mhara (“maiden of the sea),mythological creatures found in Scottish, Irish, and Faroese folklore. Said to live as seals in the sea but shed their skin to become human on land.
