The Lovers’ Chronicle 26 December – rememberin’… – art by Maurice Utrillo & Henry Miller

Dear Zazie,  Here is today’s Lovers’ Chronicle from Mac Tag dedicated to his muse. Who are you rememberin’? Rhett

The Lovers’ Chronicle

Dear Muse,

several good songs for the word of the day;
Irving Berlin, The Shangri-Las, Aerosmith,
John Lennon, Disturbed, but all sad
“Sad sells records and poems”
right, i told you when i was postin’
my sad poems i had followers
“Now we can talk about how the sadness
serves as a reminder, how fortunate we are”
and we remember to not go back

© copyright 2023 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

with a tip of the hat to Miller; first person, formless; rain all day today, the big puddle, lake Avondale forms on college, it is dark, we can hear the cars splashin’ up and down the street, chilly outside but warm inside, i write this from my spot near the window, you within arms reach, as pretty as ever

© copyright 2022.2023 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

aware of the the difference between
havin’ to remember, and bein’ with
now the word comes as reminder
to recall the many shared moments
small gestures, everyday livin’,
the places visited, the meals,
the laughter and passion

also perhaps as a que
to appreciate
how far from without
we have come

© copyright 2021.2023 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

Pale Love, Pale Rider

an astoundin’ thing, by what miracle are thoughts
transformed into words, out of inspiration and abstract
medium shapes what is to bind us, our bodies at will
after we have embraced for we have yet to say greater
things, beyond sayin’, limitless, conceivable together

© copyright 2020 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

for Tamela

how could i forget
any of it
i have been writin’
of you and for you
for over ten years

a connection so strong,
the separation
of years and miles
could not extinguish it

as was proven in the renewal,
standin’ there in the oncomin’
twilight holdin’ you again
back where we belong

© copyright 2019 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

all about us

we see in the world
the means to have
sumpthin’
more abundant
pointin’ the way
which most overlook

how it all began
there is no letup

to be in this place
to live this vision

and not do
anything else

a commemoration
chiseled in beauty and sorrow

© copyright 2018 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

for the woman at the Marriott hotel in Houston

so pretty
great eyes
jet black hair
amazin’ smile
beautiful hands
wonderful laugh
and she likes poetry
she knew d h lawrence,
“I never saw a wild thing
sorry for itself.”

so, basically,
the perfect woman

she asked me to read
her one of my poems
no one ever asked
me that before
i was at a loss
i had to look
one up

© copyright 2017 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

a day when…
the moon settin’ in the west
the sun risin’ in the east

all mornin’, buildin’ verse
lunch then naptime,
then sittin’ on the porch
drinkin’ coffee,
rememberin’…

rememberin’ the looks
rememberin’ in the kitchen,
osso buco with risotto alla milanese
ready to serve
at the table, conversation,
Chianti Classico Riserva wine,
tiramisu, cappuccino
afterwards, dishes done,
leanin’ against the counter,
a long slow kiss

that was a day
in the dead of winter,
the hard cold end of the year,
a day that unwrapped like a gift
like every day with you

© copyright 2016 mac tag/cowboy Coleridge all rights reserved

Some memories are illusions,
And are better than anything
That can ever happen to you

Of the many
Illusions
I have parted with
Over the years
It is the early ones
I miss the most

I went back alone,
Though I knew not to,
Over that familiar road
I could almost believe;
A boy and girl
From long ago
Walked beside me

Have to look hard
To see her face,
The only one, under
All the shadows,
Of all the others
At the very bottom
of my memory

Come together
Like the people
In the old song,
In silence,
If not in tears

She leads me
Into the night
My eyes find
Her silhouette
She turns
Into my hands
We live like this
On anguish and grief

Only a little
Light remains
Feels awkward
The space between us
Fillin’ with darkness

© copyright 2015 mac tag/cowboy Coleridge all rights reserved

Old wounds run deep
Here. Openin’
Them back up would
Not be good. The
Memories, the
Spirits, the pain,
The broken trail
Of hopes and dreams

© copyright 2014 mac tag/cowboy Coleridge all rights reserved

Today is the birthday of Maurice Utrillo (born Maurice Valadon; Montmartre 26 December 1883 – 5 November 1955 Dax, Aquitaine, France); painter who specialized in cityscapes.

Utrillo was the son of the artist Suzanne Valadon (born Marie-Clémentine Valadon), who was then an eighteen-year-old artist’s model.  She never revealed who was the father of her child; speculation exists that he was the offspring from a liaison with an equally young amateur painter named Boissy, or with the well established painter, Pierre-Cécile Puvis de Chavannes, or even with Renoir.  In 1891 a Spanish artist, Miguel Utrillo y Molins, signed a legal document acknowledging paternity, although the question remains as to whether he was in fact the child’s father.

An apocryphal anecdote told by Diego Rivera concerning Utrillo’s paternity is related in the unpublished memoirs of one of his American collectors, Ruth Bakwin:

“After Maurice was born to Suzanne Valadon, she went to Renoir, for whom she had modeled nine months previously. Renoir looked at the baby and said, ‘He can’t be mine, the color is terrible!’ Next she went to Degas, for whom she had also modeled. He said, ‘He can’t be mine, the form is terrible!’ At a cafe, Valadon saw Utrillo, to whom she spilled her woes. The man told her to call the baby Utrillo: ‘I would be glad to put my name to the work of either Renoir or Degas!’”

Valadon, who became a model after a fall from a trapeze ended her chosen career as a circus acrobat, found that posing for artists provided her with an opportunity to study their techniques; in some cases, she also became their mistress.  She taught herself to paint, and when Toulouse-Lautrec introduced her to Edgar Degas, he became her mentor.  Eventually she became a peer of the artists she had posed for.

In middle age Utrillo became fervently religious and in 1935, at the age of fifty-two, he married Lucie Valore and moved to Le Vesinet, just outside Paris.  By that time, he was too ill to work in the open air and painted landscapes viewed from windows, from post cards, and from memory.  Utrillo died in Hotel Splendid of a lung disease, and was buried in the Cimetière Saint-Vincent in Montmartre.

Gallery

Sacré-couer

Henry Miller

Today is the birthday of Henry Miller (Henry Valentine Miller; Yorkville, Manhattan; December 26, 1891 – June 7, 1980 Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles); writer and watercolor artist.  He was known for breaking with existing literary forms, developing a new sort of semi-autobiographical novel that blended character study, social criticism, philosophical reflection, explicit language, sex, surrealist free association and mysticism.  His most characteristic works of this kind are Tropic of Cancer (1934), Black Spring (1936), Tropic of Capricorn (1939) and The Rosy Crucifixion trilogy (1949–59), all of which are based on his experiences in New York and Paris, and all of which were banned in the United States until 1961.  He also wrote travel memoirs and literary criticism, and painted watercolors.

Miller married his first wife, Beatrice Sylvas Wickens, in 1917; their divorce was granted on December 21, 1923.  While he was still married to Beatrice, Miller met and became enamored of a mysterious dance hall dancer who was born Juliet Edith Smerth but went by the stage name June Mansfield.  They began an affair, and were married on June 1, 1924.

In 1930, Miller moved to Paris unaccompanied.  Soon after, he began work on Tropic of Cancer, writing to a friend, “I start tomorrow on the Paris book: First person, uncensored, formless – fuck everything!”  Although Miller had little or no money the first year in Paris, things began to change with the meeting of Anaïs Nin who, with Hugh Guiler, went on to pay his entire way through the 1930s including the rent for an apartment at 18 Villa Seurat.  Nin became his lover and financed the first printing of Tropic of Cancer in 1934 with money from Otto Rank.  She would write extensively in her journals about her relationship with Miller and his wife June; the first volume, covering the years 1931-34, was published in 1966.  Late in 1934, June divorced Miller by proxy in Mexico City.

Henry and June: From the Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin (full title Henry and June: From A Journal of Love: the Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin (1931–1932)) is a 1986 book, based upon material excerpted from the unpublished diaries of Nin.  It corresponds to the first volume of Nin’s published diaries, written between October 1931 and October 1932.  “Henry and June” begins with discussion of Nin’s sex life and is full of her struggles and passionate relationship with husband Hugo, and then, as the novel/memoir progresses, other lovers.  This, the first of currently five volumes of unexpurgated diaries, concentrates on her passionate involvement with Miller and June.  It is noteworthy that her diaries were able to spawn two dramatically different narratives about the same time period, both widely read and praised.  The expurgated diary reveals Nin the philosopher and amateur but astute psychologist.  The unexpurgated diary reveals a woman breaking out into wild sexual discovery.  At the end of 1931, Nin found herself dissatisfied with being a timid, faithful wife to her banker husband, Hugh Parker Guiler.  Nin and her husband contemplate the possibility of opening their relationship, and determine that it would threaten their marriage.  However when Nin meets June Miller, she is drawn to her and perceives June to be the most beautiful and charismatic woman she has ever met.  Nin pursues an extremely intense, ambiguous, sexually charged friendship with her.  When June leaves, Nin becomes involved with Henry, and begins an uninhibited sexual and emotional affair with him, which prompts an intellectual and sensual awakening.  A friendship is formed between the two that was maintained throughout both artist’s lives.  The book was later filmed as Henry & June directed by Philip Kaufman, with Fred Ward as Miller, Uma Thurman as June, and Maria de Medeiros as Nin.  The movie, released in 1990, is notable as the first film to be released in the United States with an NC-17 rating.

In 1944, Miller met and married his third wife, Janina Martha Lepska, a philosophy student who was 30 years his junior.  They divorced in 1952.  The following year, he married artist Eve McClure, who was 37 years his junior.  They divorced in 1960, and she died in 1966, likely as a result of alcoholism.  In 1961, Miller arranged a reunion in New York with his ex-wife and main subject of The Rosy Crucifixion trilogy, June.

In February 1963, Miller moved to Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, California, where he would spend the last 17 years of his life.  In 1967, Miller married his fifth wife, Hoki Tokuda.

Tropic of Cancer (1934)

• A year ago, six months ago, I thought that I was an artist. I no longer think about it, I am. Everything that was literature has fallen from me. There are no more books to be written, thank God. This then? This is not a book. This is libel, slander, defamation of character. This is not a book, in the ordinary sense of the word. No, this is a prolonged insult, a gob of spit in the face of Art, a kick in the pants to God, Man, Destiny, Time, Love, Beauty … what you will.
  • Chapter One
• One can live in Paris—I discovered that!—on just grief and anguish. A bitter nourishment—perhaps the best there is for certain people. At any rate, I had not yet come to the end of my rope. I was only flirting with disaster. … I understood then why it is that Paris attracts the tortured, the hallucinated, the great maniacs of love. I understood why it is that here, at the very hub of the wheel, one can embrace the most fantastic, the most impossible theories, without finding them in the least strange; it is here that one reads again the books of his youth and the enigmas take on new meanings, one for every white hair. One walks the streets knowing that he is mad, possessed, because it is only too obvious that these cold, indifferent faces are the visages of one’s keepers. Here all boundaries fade away and the world reveals itself for the mad slaughterhouse that it is. The treadmill stretches away to infinitude, the hatches are closed down tight, logic runs rampant, with bloody cleaver flashing.

Gallery

thanks for stoppin’ by y’all

Mac Tag