The Lovers’ Chronicle 23 May – passin’ by – art by Carl Bloch, Amaldus Nielsen, Luis Ricardo Falero, József Rippl-Rónai & Gustaw Gwozdecki – birth of Jane Kenyon

Dear Z, Today’s Lovers’ Chronicle from Mac Tag to his muse.  I agree with Mac Tag’s comment at the end.  What about you Zazie?  Rhett

The Lovers’ Chronicle

Dear Muse,

did not think of a song
but thought of an epitaph
and that leads to a poem
and then to a book;
‘’Cast a cold eye
On life, on death
Horseman, pass by!’’
Yeats from his poem, ‘’Under Ben Bulben’’
which is a large flat-topped rock formation
in County Sligo, Ireland, Yeats is buried
in the churchyard of Drumcliffe church
at the foot of Ben Bulben
’’I wondered where that came from’’
And Larry McMurtry titled his first book,
Horseman, Pass By, one of my favorites,
but as a topic for today, it is about
how i had picked out a nice spot
with a view to watch life pass by
’’And now my darling’’
i would tell that horseman
it is ok to stop and stay

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with you, any ol’ thing we do; findin’ the beauty in the day to day, best git there quick, adventures are fine and necessary, but more time will be spent in the slow turn of an afternoon, side by side; quietly on the couch, readin’, watchin’ a movie, writin’, on the balcony havin’ a drink, goin’ for a walk through the neighborhood after Sunday breakfast outside at the cafe around the corner, in bed makin’ love, readin’ poetry, you know, passin’ by together

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this question asked
once ago;

“Listen, have you ever been…”

and the answer then,
no, of course

i knew it happened
now and then
and that it could be

everything

we made love that night
and i believed

not just passin’ by

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Pale Love, Pale Rider

just tryin’ to capture
two feelin’s in one

i feel everything
and nothin’

keepin’ close, sinkin’
down, waitin’, listenin’
pale starlight affords
indistinct sight, but eyes
keen and used to the dark,
recognize you, farther out
passin’ by, almost without
sound, meltin’ into the night

just passin’ by

© copyright 2020 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

live from Atlanta, actually Decatur, y’all 

passin’ the day with an old friend
and made a new one, Sophie the bartender 
yes, it made me wonder, she is beautiful 
that would sure shake things up, force
me outta this safe place i created
where i can observe in solitude,
which man can live on alone,
by the way, but, her perfume
was nice, and it might be fine
to spend some time in the arms…
oh my, how long has it been

© copyright 2019.2024 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

tryin’ to be
a good steward
of what i have
protectin’ my time,
now that it is mine
feedin’ the vision,
avoidin’ the noise
havin’ good verse
and melodies
in my ears
callin’ out beauty,
and not shyin’
from sorrow
bein’ by myself

you know
just passin’ by

© copyright 2018 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

“Listen, have you ever been…”
no
“Well, it happens now and then
and it’s wonderful.”

we made love that night
and i believed her
up until i rode away

***

“I know right where I went wrong”

yep, never shoulda
said those two words
now, finally a chance
to git it right…
give me strength

© copyright 2017 mac tag/cowboy Coleridge all rights reserved

Stars begin to lighten
the earlier blackness
From the wide flat sweep
blows a cool wind, fragrant
with the breath of sage
Keepin’ close to the edge
of the cottonwoods,
swiftly and silently westward
sinkin’ down in the gloom,
waitin’, listenin’
The pale starlight affords
indistinct sight, but eyes
keen and used to the dark,
recognize…
Then, farther out on the sage,
a horsemen passes by,
almost without sound,
specter like
meltin’ into the night

© copyright 2016 Mac tag/cowboy Coleridge all rights reserved

A soul delivered
In the darkest ways

Do not wait up
for me, for the
night will be black

A certain malady
evident in the eyes

Just passin’ by

© copyright 2015 Mac tag/cowboy Coleridge all rights reserved

Today is the birthday of Carl Bloch (Carl Heinrich Bloch; Copenhagen; May 23, 1834 – February 22, 1890 Copenhagen); Danish painter.

Bloch met his wife, Alma Trepka, in Rome, where he married her on 31 May 1868. They were happily married until her early death in 1886.  The sorrow over losing his wife weighed heavily on Bloch, and being left alone with their eight children after her death was very difficult for him.

Bloch died of cancer. His death came as “an abrupt blow for Nordic art” according to an article by Sophus Michaelis. Michaelis stated that “Denmark has lost the artist that indisputably was the greatest among the living.” Kyhn stated in his eulogy at Bloch’s funeral that “Bloch stays and lives.”

Gallery

Today is the birthday of Amaldus Nielsen (Amaldus Clarin Nielsen; Halse, Norway; 23 May 1838 – 10 December 1932 Oslo); painter. He painted in the naturalist style, and has been called “Norway’s first naturalist painter”. Important paintings include Hvalørhei (1874), Skovbillede (1896), Morgen ved Ny-Hellesund (1885, one of several from Ny-Hellesund), Ensomt sted (1901), Fra Bankefjorden (1910) and Kveld på Jæren (1925). Most of his paintings portrayed Western and Southern Norway, but also Østfold.

 In October 1868 in Christiania he married Johanne Nicoline Augusta Vangensteen, born 1845.  She died in March 1886 from a diphtheria epidemic.  After a period of grief, he married Laura Tandberg (1857–1928) in February 1888 in Risør.  Nielsen died in December 1932, aged 94, from pneumonia.

Gallery

Late in the day

Today is the birthday of Luis Ricardo Falero (Granada; May 23, 1851 – December 7, 1896 London); painter. He specialized in female nudes and mythological, orientalist and fantasy settings.  His most common medium was oil on canvas. Falero’s paintings are held mostly within private collections in Europe and the United States, although a watercolour of the ‘Twin Stars’ is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Self portrait oil on canvas

Falero had a particular interest in astronomy and incorporated celestial constellations into many of his works, such as “The Marriage of a Comet” and “Twin Stars”. His interest and knowledge of astronomy also led him to illustrate the works of Camille Flammarion.

In 1889, in Rochford, Essex, Falero married Maria Cristina Spinelli, and in 1891 they were living at 100 Fellows Road, Hampstead.  His wife was Italian and had a connection with Atina in the Province of Frosinone.

In 1896, the year of his death, Maud Harvey sued Falero for paternity. The suit alleged that Falero seduced Harvey when she was 17, first serving as his housemaid, and then model. When he discovered she was pregnant, he dismissed her. She won the case and was awarded five shillings per week in support of their child.

Falero died at University College Hospital, at the age of 45, leaving an estate valued for probate at £1,139. His widow María Cristina Falero was his executrix.

Gallery

Today is the birthday of József Rippl-Rónai (Kaposvár, Hungary; 23 May 1861 – 25 November 1927 Kaposvá); painter. He first introduced modern artistic movements in the Hungarian art.

He believed that for an artist not only is his body of work significant, but also his general modus vivendi, even including the clothes he wore. He thus became interested in design, which led to commissions such as the dining room and the entire furnishings of the Andrássy palace, and a stained-glass window in the Ernst Museum, (both in Budapest). Between 1911 and 1913 his exhibitions in Frankfurt, Munich and Vienna were highly successful. His last major work, a portrait of his friend Zorka, was painted in 1919, and in 1927 he died at his home, the Villa Róma in Kaposvár.

Gallery

After the bath

Today is the birthday of Gustaw Gwozdecki (May 5, 1880 in Warsaw – March 3, 1935 in Paris); painter, sculptor, printmaker, and a representative of Post-Impressionist Kapists.

He painted landscapes, portraits, caryatids and still life. He made sculptures out of marble and gypsum. His artwork contains simple figures, with repleted rich tones. Many of his artwork is based around the life of native people. His primary artwork made him one of Poland’s first modernists and expressionists. After 1910, he moved to Fauvism, by which his artwork gained positive views from French fine arts critics. His artwork was promoted by his friend, Guillaume Apollinaire, which were part of the journal “La Plume”. Currently, Gwozdecki’s artwork is located in various locations, which include: National Museum in Warsaw, Poznań, and Kraków, the Society of Polish History and Literature (Towarzystwo Historyczno-Literackie) in Paris; the Gallery of Fine Arts nearby the Yale University; and the New York City based Kosciuszko Foundation.

gallery

And today is the birthday of Jane Kenyon (Ann Arbor, Michigan; May 23, 1947 – April 22, 1995 Wilmot, New Hampshire); poet and translator. Her work is often characterized as simple, spare, and emotionally resonant. Kenyon was the second wife of poet, editor, and critic Donald Hall who made her the subject of many of his poems. they lived on his family’s farm in New Hampshire.  Kenyon said…

“Be a good steward of your gifts. Protect your time. Feed your inner life. Avoid too much noise. Read good books, have good sentences in your ears. Be by yourself as often as you can. Walk. Take the phone off the hook. Work regular hours.”

“A poet’s job is to find a name for everything: to be a fearless finder of the names of things.”

Hall wrote: “[W]e got up early in the morning. I brought Jane coffee in bed. She walked the dog as I started writing, then climbed the stairs to work at her own desk on her own poems. We had lunch. We lay down together. We rose and worked at secondary things. I read aloud to Jane; we played scoreless ping-pong; we read the mail; we worked again. We ate supper, talked, read books sitting across from each other in the living room, and went to sleep. If we were lucky the phone didn’t ring all day. In January Jane dreamed of flowers, planning expansion and refinement of the garden. From late March into October she spent hours digging, applying fifty-year-old Holstein manure from under the barn, planting, transplanting, and weeding.”

That near about describes a perfect existence.  How I wish I had that with you, Muse.

thanks for stoppin’ by y’all

Mac Tag

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