Dear Zazie, Here is today’s Lovers’ Chronicle from Mac Tag dedicated to his muse. Follow us on twitter @cowboycoleridge. Are with the someone you want to remain ever the same? Rhett
The Lovers’ Chronicle
Dear Muse,
wand’rin’ dream…
oh here it comes floatin’, dozin’ in and out, visions
comin’ and goin’, j’adore this lucid dream space
oh but wait, where is the vivacious redhead
(reaching out to touch her), yes she is here,
ok lets go, wonder where the dream Goddess
will take us tonight, might see my Dad
he is the only family member i ever see
used to have frequent plane crash dreams
never in one, just watched ‘em crashin’
and the bein’ naked in public ones came
around pretty often, i once had an episodic
series of post apocalyptic zombie dreams
have had quite a few where i was perched
precariously on a high ledge or buildin’
a long time ago a michael Myers’ type
boogie man would appear, perhaps
the most vivid dream i ever had
was one where i was drivin’ in Austin
i remember wakin’ up stunned
that i was in bed and not in a car
and i have had my share of sex dreams
with women i know and some i did not
i write about those here as they happen
so as not to lose them, i have even
dreamed women before i met them,
Sara was one, well, enough of that
lets fall so tonight’s dreams can come
ever the same but different with you
© copyright 2024 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved
we could go with Baudelaire but
“You’re going to spare me”
yes from the despair
and darkness
“Thanks baby”
we can talk about
how some things
do not change
“Like work for both of us”
our curiosity
“For art and the stories
behind the pictures”
“How we begin and end our days”
in our favorite place ever the same
© copyright 2023 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved
back on the high wire, which way we will go, comfortable up here, no direction, just followin’ the flow, the words come as ever, same but different, so structured and regimented in all other matters, not here, one of the attractions; bein’ free, to go with the wind, wherever that may be with you
© copyright 2022.2023 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved
a new welcomed era
of sameness goin’ on
about ten months now
some things remain
constant these six years
still recordin’ and recallin’
the tales, and what will be
work, readin’ and exercisin’
occupy their place on the schedule
and the music and movies
soundtrack continues
now with the addition of you
© copyright 2021.2023 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved
Pale Love, Pale Rider
askin’ questions, liftin’, soothin’
your voice, sweet inspiration
smile with laughter, life,
to hold, comfort, kindly
let me go, into your eyes
the verse reveals everything
desires, dreams painted
on the canvas of us
determined
said another way,
never the same
© copyright 2020 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved
thanks Sheli
this black mood rollin’ in
just to be alive is to grieve
pain simply, no mystery at all
askin’ questions, liftin’, soothin’
your voice, sweet, cannot suppress
smile with laughter, more than life,
the power to hold, comfort, kindly
let me go, ever the same, into your eyes
“You’re starting to worry me”
because the verse has gone from bad to worse
© copyright 2019 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved
somethin’ of the eternal
and ephemeral,
or is it,
the absolute
and particular
the verse reveals
everything
desires, dreams
embroidered
on the canvas
of what we had
determined to seek
the means of expression
just another
way of sayin’,
ever the same
© copyright 2018 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved
a new era of same same
goin’ on three months
much needed healin’
and centerin’ here
so far, surprised
to find my faculties
fairly sound
meant above all else
to record and relate
what happened
and what will
outside of that, read,
work, run, lift weights
behind it all a soundtrack
of music and movies
the longer i can keep
this same goin’
the better
© copyright 2017.2023 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved
Where comes this strange sadness
Like a black tide risin’
How the heart hardens so
The secret of all known
Gone along with the Wind
Just as well; days long past
Visions once held dear, now
Ever the same in the rearview
© copyright 2016 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved
Render darkness, black light into this soul
Never the same, steeped in this, the lifeblood
From earthly prison to beauty of night
© copyright 2015 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved
It was on this day in 1867, French poet Charles Baudelaire died in Paris. Baudelaire’s muse was Jeanne Duval (c.1820 – 1862) a Haitian-born actress and dancer of mixed French and black African ancestry. They met in 1842, when Duval left Haiti for France. They remained together, albeit stormily, for the next two decades. Duval is said to have been the woman whom Baudelaire loved most in his life. Poems of Baudelaire’s which are dedicated to Duval or pay her homage are: Le balcon, Parfum exotique, La chevelure, Sed non satiata, Le serpent qui danse, and Une charogne. Baudelaire called her “mistress of mistresses” and his “Vénus Noire” (“Black Venus”), and it is believed that, to him, Duval symbolized the dangerous beauty, sexuality, and mystery of a Creole woman in mid-nineteenth century France. Here is the Poem of the Day by Baudelaire (translation by Edna St. Vincent Millay):
Semper Eadem (Ever The Same)
«D’où vous vient, disiez-vous, cette tristesse étrange,
Montant comme la mer sur le roc noir et nu?»
— Quand notre coeur a fait une fois sa vendange
Vivre est un mal. C’est un secret de tous connu,
Une douleur très simple et non mystérieuse
Et, comme votre joie, éclatante pour tous.
Cessez donc de chercher, ô belle curieuse!
Et, bien que votre voix soit douce, taisez-vous!
Taisez-vous, ignorante! âme toujours ravie!
Bouche au rire enfantin! Plus encor que la Vie,
La Mort nous tient souvent par des liens subtils.
Laissez, laissez mon coeur s’enivrer d’un mensonge,
Plonger dans vos beaux yeux comme dans un beau songe
Et sommeiller longtemps à l’ombre de vos cils!
Ever the Same
‘What in the world,’ you said, ‘has brought on this black mood,
Climbing you as the sea climbs up a naked reef?’
— When once the heart has made its harvest (understood
By all men, this) why, just to be alive is grief:
A pain quite simple, nothing mysterious at all,
And like that joy of yours, patent to all we meet;
Stop asking questions, then, I beg of you, and fall
Silent a while, fair prober, though your voice be sweet.
Ah, yes, be silent, ignorant girl, always so gay,
Mouth with the childlike laughter! More than Life, I say,
Death has the power to hold us by most subtle ties.
My one fictitious comfort, kindly, let me keep:
To plunge as into dreams into your lovely eyes,
And in the shadow of your lashes fall asleep.
The Song of the Day is Rob Thomas – “Ever the Same”
I wish our together was still ever the same.
Today is the birthday of Helen Levitt (Brooklyn; August 31, 1913 – March 29, 2009 New York City); photographer and cinematographer. Perhaps best known for her street photography around New York City. David Levi Strauss described her as “the most celebrated and least known photographer of her time.”
Levitt was most well known and celebrated for her work taking pictures of children playing in the streets. She also focused her work in areas of Harlem and the Lower East side with minority populations. There is a constant motif of children playing games in her work. She stepped away from the normal practice set by other established photographers at the time of giving a journalistic depiction of suffering. She instead chose to show the world from the perspective of children from taking pictures of their chalk art. She usually positions the camera and styles the photo in a way that gives the focus of her photography power. Her choice to display children playing in the street and explore street photography, fights against what was going on at the time. Legislation being passed in New York at the time was limiting many of the working classes access to these public spaces. Laws were passed that directly targeted these communities in an attempt to control them. New bans on noise targeted working class and minority communities. There was a movement to also try to keep children from playing on the street, believing it is unsafe for them out there. Instead, it encouraged safe new areas that were usually built more in upper and middle class areas. Levitt instead explored the narrative of those who lived in these areas and played in these streets as a way to empower the subjects of her photos.
She had to give up making her own prints in the 1990s due to sciatica, which also made standing and carrying her Leica difficult, causing her to switch to a small, automatic Contax. She was born with Ménière’s syndrome, an inner-ear disorder that caused her to “[feel] wobbly all [her] life.” She also had a near-fatal case of pneumonia in the 1950s. Levitt lived a personal and quiet life. She seldom gave interviews and was generally very introverted. She never married, living alone with her yellow tabby Blinky. Levitt died in her sleep, at the age of 95.
Gallery
And today is the birthday of Alan Jay Lerner (New York City; August 31, 1918 – June 14, 1986 Manhattan); lyricist and librettist. In collaboration with Frederick Loewe, and later Burton Lane, he created some of the world’s most popular and enduring works of musical theatre both for the stage and on film. He won three Tony Awards and three Academy Awards, among other honors. The Lerner and Loewe partnership spanned three decades and nine musicals from 1942 to 1960 and again from 1970 to 1972, the pair are known for being behind the creation of critical on stage successes such as My Fair Lady, Brigadoon and Camelot along with the musical film Gigi.
Lerner married eight times: Ruth Boyd (1940–1947), singer Marion Bell (1947–1949), actress Nancy Olson (1950–1957), lawyer Micheline Muselli Pozzo di Borgo (1957–1965), editor Karen Gundersen (1966–1974), Sandra Payne (1974–1976), Nina Bushkin (1977–1981) and Liz Robertson (1981–1986 [his death]). Four of his eight wives — Olson, Payne, Bushkin, and Robertson — were actresses. His seventh wife, Nina Bushkin, whom he married on May 30, 1977, was the director of development at Mannes College of Music and the daughter of composer and musician Joey Bushkin. After their divorce in 1981, Lerner was ordered to pay her a settlement of $50,000. Lerner wrote in his autobiography (as quoted by The New York Times): “All I can say is that if I had no flair for marriage, I also had no flair for bachelorhood.” One of his ex-wives reportedly said, “Marriage is Alan’s way of saying goodbye.”
Mac Tag
thanks for stoppin’ by y’all
There is an invincible taste for prostitution in the heart of man, from which comes his horror of solitude. He wants to be ‘two’. The man of genius wants to be ‘one’… It is this horror of solitude, the need to lose oneself in the external flesh, that man nobly calls ‘the need to love’. – Baudelaire
Unable to suppress love, the Church wanted at least to disinfect it, and it created marriage. – Baudelaire
The Lovers’ Chronicle 
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