The Lovers’ Chronicle 25 February – faith – art by Renoir & Alice Bailly – birth of Anthony Burgess

Dear Zazie, Here is today’s Lovers’ Chronicle from Mac Tag dedicated to his muse. Follow us on twitter @cowboycoleridge. Rhett

The Lovers’ Chronicle

Dear Muse,

dream spécialité…
-He and the vivacious redhead are being whisked away again
Where are we going tonight, she asks
not sure, but today is the birthday of Anthony Burgess
Oh please tell me we are not on a clockwork orange tour
i think not, he wrote poetry too so i am hopin’ for, une petite spécialité called l’amour
-They are soon escorted into a dim lit restaurant and seated in a booth upholstered in red leather with a white tablecloth and a small lamp on the table, it is formidable and they feel très contents
-They are served two drinks
Pernod, he asks the server
Oui monsieur
ok, perfect, this is from his poem, “Earthly Powers”, no ultra-violence here
Good, cheers my darling
cheers my dear, next comes lobster and wine
Fabulous, guess faith would have been well placed in the dream goddess
for tonight anyway, now back to l’amour

© copyright 2024 mac tag/cowboycoleridge all rights reserved

flickered and went out
“I know it did”
some say, or sing,
you gotta have it
“An overused and abused word”
no question, contorted to fit
all kinda spurious opinions
“I think it is best held close”
yes, used that way
it is a fine word
“As in, I have in you”
and i in you

© copyright 2023 mac tag/cowboycoleridge all rights reserved

one of those words that is overused or asked to carry more than it can, used sparin’ly in these pages, had not enough confidence in anyone or anything to keep it beatin’, and in a familiar refrain, if i could not have it, i did not need it, a philosophy that worked fine till you and faith showed up

© copyright 2022.2024 mac tag/cowboycoleridge all rights reserved

on Peachtree against
the neon skyline
where the scene
fills with city life
and glasses of wine
at a cozy table

or hangin’ out
at my funky place
on Aberdeen

either way
you know
you are all
that matters

either way
une petite spécialité
called l’amour….

© copyright 2021 mac tag/cowboycoleridge all rights reserved

Pale Love, Pale Rider

that was then
this is now…

the scene is real
on the tree covered
Rocky Top,
standin’ ‘neath
the Carolina
night sky

Orion high over our head
holdin’ on to each other
no longer waitin’, takin’
what once was, creatin’
all we ever dreamed of
and more, here where
we belong at last

© copyright 2020 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

a tree covered hilltop
against the High Plains sky
where the scene is painted
by two who have waited
a very long time

© copyright 2019 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

on the High Plains
against a cloudless sky
where the scene
fills with stars

or downtown
with martinis
at a cozy table

either way
you know
you are all
that matters

either way
une petite spécialité
called l’amour….

© copyright 2018 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

for Tamela

heavy burdens
hurt, madness, fear,
guttural grief

tough month
for the Carolina Girl
and the soi disant poet
apart, but not
need escape, relief
found perhaps,
in imagined ambiance…

torchlit porch, emptyin’
glass after wineglass
watchin’ the night
and the flame flutter

rememberin’
what once was
under the Carolina sky
the night at the opera,
cocktail parties, lunches,
shared dreams and scenes
of how together should feel

candlelit room, empty
whiskey bottle
searchin’ for words
and faith flickers

© copyright 2017 mac tag/cowboy Coleridge all rights reserved

Never happened to strike
In that direction
“What decides your direction”
Lookin’ for chances
Reckon it is either
Ambition or mere
Restlessness

Hear the music
Of several languages
See the glow of sunset
Feel the familiar burnin’,
Hummin’, stretchin’
Between past and present

© copyright 2016 mac tag/cowboy Coleridge all rights reserved

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Today is the birthday of Pierre-Auguste Renoir (Limoges, Haute-Vienne; 25 February 1841 – 3 December 1919 Cagnes-sur-Mer, Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur); artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style.  As a celebrator of beauty and especially feminine sensuality, it has been said that “Renoir is the final representative of a tradition which runs directly from Rubens to Watteau.”

While living and working in Montmartre, Renoir employed Suzanne Valadon as a model, who posed for him (The Large Bathers, 1884–87; Dance at Bougival, 1883) and many of his fellow painters.  During that time she studied their techniques and eventually became one of the leading painters of the day.

In 1890, he married Aline Victorine Charigot, who, along with a number of the artist’s friends, had already served as a model for Le Déjeuner des canotiers (Luncheon of the Boating Party – she is the woman on the left playing with the dog) in 1881.  After his marriage, Renoir painted many scenes of his wife and daily family life including their children and their nurse, Aline’s cousin Gabrielle Renard.

Gallery

Nu couché

The Swing (La Balançoire), 1876, oil on canvas, Musée d’Orsay, Paris

Renoir, c. 1910

Two Sisters, oil on canvas, 1881, Art Institute of Chicago

Girls at the Piano, 1892, Musée d’Orsay, Paris

Today is the birthday of Alice Bailly (Geneva 25 February 1872 – 1 January 1938 Lausanne); avant-garde painter, known for her interpretations on cubism, fauvism, futurism, her wool paintings, and her participation in the Dada movement. In 1906, Bailly had settled in Paris where she befriended Juan Gris, Francis Picabia, and Marie Laurencin, avant-garde modernist painters who influenced her works and her later life.

Gallery

And today is the birthday of Anthony Burgess (John Anthony Burgess Wilson; Harpurhey, Lancashire 25 February 1917 – 22 November 1993 St. John’s Wood, London); writer and composer. From relatively modest beginnings in a Catholic family in Manchester, he eventually became one of the best known English literary figures of the latter half of the twentieth century.

Perhaps best known for his dystopian satire A Clockwork Orange.  In 1971 it was adapted into a film by Stanley Kubrick, which Burgess said was chiefly responsible for the popularity of the book.  Burgess produced numerous other novels, including the Enderby quartet, and Earthly Powers.  He wrote librettos and screenplays, and the 1977 TV mini-series Jesus of Nazareth.  He worked as a literary critic for several publications, including The Observer and The Guardian, and wrote studies of classic writers, notably James Joyce.  A versatile linguist, Burgess lectured in phonetics, and translated Cyrano de Bergerac, Oedipus the King and the opera Carmen, among others.

Burgess also composed over 250 musical works; he sometimes claimed to consider himself as much a composer as an author.

Burgess met Llewela “Lynne” Isherwood Jones at the university where she was studying economics, politics and modern history, graduating in 1942 with an upper second-class. Burgess and Jones were married on 22 January 1942. She was the daughter of secondary school headmaster Edward Jones (1886–1963) and Florence (née Jones; 1867–1956), and reportedly claimed to be a distant relative of Christopher Isherwood.

Liana Macellari, an Italian translator twelve years younger than Burgess, came across his novels Inside Mr. Enderby and A Clockwork Orange, while writing about English fiction. The two first met in 1963 over lunch in Chiswick and began an affair. In 1964, Liana gave birth to Burgess’s son, Paolo Andrea. The affair was hidden from Lynne, whom he refused to leave for fear of offending his cousin (by Burgess’s stepmother, Margaret Dwyer Wilson), George Dwyer, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Leeds.

Lynne died from cirrhosis of the liver, on 20 March 1968. Six months later, in September 1968, Burgess married Liana, acknowledging her four-year-old boy as his own, although the birth certificate listed Roy Halliday, Liana’s former partner, as the father. Paolo Andrea (also known as Andrew Burgess Wilson) died in London in 2002, aged 37. Liana died in 2007.

Although Burgess wrote that he expected to “die somewhere in the Mediterranean lands, with an inaccurate obituary in the Nice-Matin, unmourned, soon forgotten”, he returned to die in Twickenham, an outer suburb of London, where he owned a house. Burgess died on 22 November 1993 from lung cancer, at the Hospital of St John & St Elizabeth in London. His ashes were inurned at the Monaco Cemetery.

Verse 

• Oh, love, love, love —
  Love on a hilltop high,
  Love against a cloudless sky,
  Love where the scene is
  Painted by a million stars,
  Love with martinis
  In the cabarets and bars.
  Oh, love, love, love…
  • Beds in the East.
• Find a cosy table
  Inside a restaurant,
  Somewhere formidable
  Where you’ll be très contents.
  Let your lady fair know
  That she is all you see,
  Prime her with a Pernod
  Or three.
  Watch her crack a lobster
  And strip it to the buff,
  Rough as when a mobster
  Gets tough.
  Keep the wine cascading
  And you’ll ensure
  Une petite spécialité called l’amour….
  • Earthly Powers.

thanks for stoppin’ by y’all

mac tag