Dear Zazie,

Here is today’s Lovers’ Chronicle from Mac Tag. Rhett

The Lovers’ Chronicle

Dear Muse,

dream castin’…
-The dream goddess takes them on a detour tonight;
they are having a drink at a seaside cafe called Alatiera-
The water here is beautiful, says the lovely redhead,
do you know where here is
based on the color of the water and this bottle
of Ouzo this must be Greece, specifically,
Missolonghi, because Byron died on this day
two hundred years ago, he says
Oh wow, is he buried here
no, his heart may be here somewhere 
but his body was taken back to London
for burial in Westminster Abbey
but the Abbey refused
for reason of "questionable morality"
Bastards
right, well he cast a long shadow over the Abbey
until they finally put a memorial to him
in Poet’s Corner, 145 years later 
Speaking of casting…
as in glances of desire to you
Yes, my favorite 

© copyright 2024 mac tag/cowboycoleridge all rights reserved

this one had to be from somethin’
i was readin’, though that is lost
“I can see the drama pulling you in”
and today is a perfecto,
no not the cigar kind
“Ah, that was my first guess”
ha! hold on, i consider june 2017
to be the beginnin’ of my verse
so on this day, i have written
a poem every year from
2018 through 2023
“Nice job bébé”
and since 2021,
three years in a row
castin’ verse for you

© copyright 2023 mac tag/cowboycoleridge all rights reserved

choose this, a passion, an idea… and instill it, dense, deep inside a vision that our minds create, the plot, surrounds us, wallowin’ in the warmth, the bursts, the reward we have paid for in this siege that we put to art, that flatters so, we are caught, castin’ our shadows

© copyright 2022 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

 the arched curve of your back

a falterin’ voice
breathin’
while hands touch
tender, to awaken

thoughts afford
a remembered
vision together

there is no hidin’
ask not, whate’er state,
voice regained, steady
feelin’s now expressin’
what is discovered

come, cast thy shadow o’er

© copyright 2021 mac tag/cowboy Coleridge all rights reserved

Pale Love, Pale Rider

endure as best can
though these troubles
overwhelm and control

in every laugh a cry
in each pleasure, grief
as happens with life, but
pain wanes, we go on
such are the constancies
of havin’ long-felt desire

when the loss feels intense,
when joy feels all but lost

hope reminds

© copyright 2020 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

endure as best as can
at once precious yet
unendurable
this self-imposed trial
overwhelms and controls

laugh, cry,
pleasure, grief
wane, endure
such are the inconstancies
of holdin’ what cannot be held

when felt most intense
all but certain
and the hour arrives
begin again

long-felt vain dreams
accustomed to run
endless beyond…

can it ever root again
if it arched the curve of its back
if it thrust as deep as before

allow falterin’ voice
to breathe
while hands touch

tender, to wake
no thought affords
but one remembered
vision together

there is no hidin’
were there yet tears
ask not, whate’er state,
voice lost, hand unsteady
when feelin’s nor can express
that which was known

come, cast thy shadow o’er

© copyright 2019 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

choose an idea,
often somehow
related to you,
and i create with it
what i can
it is the only
fulfillment
i know

surround myself,
with the feelin’,
wallow in the fire
that lights up inside
and bursts hopelessly

and i will pay
what has to be paid
for what i must have

© copyright 2018 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

endure as best as can
at once so precious yet
so plainly unendurable
these self-imposed troubles
overwhelm and control

in every laugh a cry
in each pleasure, grief
happiness wanes, pain endures
such are the inconstancies
of holdin’ what cannot be held

when the loss feels most intense
when joy feels all but certain
and the hour of delight arrives
anguish begins again

long-felt desires, vain hopes
sad sighs, dreams accustomed to run
sad into as many rivers,
pourin’ like fountains, endless rain
a pain, beyond…

so hard, no compassion, gone mad
with pity: the last passions had
can passion ever root again
if it arched the curve of its back
if it licked with ardent fire
if it thrust as deep as before

the wounds cut everywhere
so there would be no place free
were yet there tears to flow
for hours, forever, past away

while yet, swellin’ sighs allow
falterin’ voice to breathe
while yet hands touch
tender, to wake
while yet, no thought affords
but one remembered dream alone

ask not, whate’er state
but when eyes weep no more
voice lost, hand untrue
when spirit’s fire is o’er
nor can express that which was known

come, cast thy shadow o’er

***

my restin’-place for the night;
a ruin—cabin, stable, and corral
after hours of pushin’ on
still to have silence
perfectly fits the mood

© copyright 2016 Mac Tag all rights reserved

Today is the baptismal day of Willem Drost (Amsterdam 19 April 1633 – buried 25 February 1659); Dutch Golden Age painter and printmaker.

He is a mysterious figure with not much known of his life. Around 1650, according to the early art historian Houbraken, he became a student of Rembrandt, eventually developing a close working relationship, painting history scenes, biblical compositions, symbolic studies of a solitary figure, as well as portraits. He was in Amsterdam until 1655 and then travelled to Rome and Venice, where he died.

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Today is the birthday of José Echegaray (José Echegaray y Eizaguirre Madrid 19 April 1832 – 14 September 1916 Madrid); civil engineer, mathematician, statesman, and one of the leading Spanish dramatists of the last quarter of the 19th century.  He was awarded the 1904 Nobel Prize for Literature “in recognition of the numerous and brilliant compositions which, in an individual and original manner, have revived the great traditions of the Spanish drama.”

Escojo una pasión, tomo una idea,
un problema, un carácter… y lo infundo,
cual densa dinamita, en lo profundo
de un personaje que mi mente crea.
La trama, al personaje le rodea
de unos cuantos muñecos que en el mundo
o se revuelcan en el cieno inmundo
o se calientan a la luz febea.
La mecha enciendo. El fuego se prepara,
el cartucho revienta sin remedio,
y el astro principal es quien lo paga.
Aunque a veces también en este asedio
que al arte pongo y que al instinto halaga,
¡me coge la explosión de medio a medio!

—Célebre soneto en el que expuso su poética teatral

today is the birthday of Eva Gonzalès (Paris 19 April 1849 – 6 May 1883 Paris); Impressionist painter. She was one of the four most notable female Impressionists in the nineteenth century, along with Mary Cassatt (1844–1926), Berthe Morisot (1841–95), and Marie Bracquemond (1840–1916).

Gonzalès became introduced to sophisticated literary and art circles at an early age by her father, writer Emmanuel Gonzalès. In 1865, at age sixteen, Eva Gonzalès began her professional training and art lessons in drawing from the society portraitist Charles Chaplin.

Through her father’s connections as a founding president of the Société des gens de lettres, she met a variety of members of the Parisian cultural elite, and from a young age was exposed to the new ideas surrounding art and literature at the time. Three years later she met Manet and soon became his model and then his student. Like Manet, Gonzalès never exhibited in the Impressionist exhibitions in Paris, but she is considered part of the group because of her painting style.

In 1879, after a three-year engagement, she married Henri Guérard, a graphic artist and Manet’s engraver. The couple had a son named Jean Raimond in April 1883, but Gonzalès died from childbirth complications at the age of thirty-four, five days after the death of Manet.

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today is the birthday of Jayne Mansfield (born Vera Jayne Palmer; Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania; April 19, 1933 – June 29, 1967 East New Orléans, Louisiana); actress, singer, nightclub entertainer, and Playboy Playmate. A sex symbol of the 1950s and early 1960s while under contract at 20th Century Fox, Mansfield was known for her well-publicized personal life and publicity stunts. Her film career was short-lived, but she had several box-office successes and won a Theatre World Award and a Golden Globe Award.

Mansfield enjoyed success in the role of fictional actress Rita Marlowe in the Broadway play Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1955–1956), which she reprised in the film adaptation of the same name (1957). Her other film roles include the musical comedy The Girl Can’t Help It (1956), the drama The Wayward Bus (1957), the neo-noir Too Hot to Handle (1960), and the sex comedy Promises! Promises! (1963); the latter established Mansfield as the first major American actress to perform in a nude scene in a post-silent era film.

Mansfield took her professional name from her first husband, public relations professional Paul Mansfield. She married three times, all of which ended in divorce, and had five children, including Mariska Hargitay, with husband Mickey. She was allegedly intimately involved with numerous men, including Robert and John F. Kennedy, her attorney Samuel S. Brody, and Las Vegas entertainer Nelson Sardelli. On June 29, 1967, she died in an automobile accident at the age of 34.

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thanks for stoppin’ by y’all

mac tag