The Lovers’ Chronicle 27 May – return – birth of Wild Bill Hickok – art by Georges Rouault – verse by Linda Pastan

Dear Zazie, Here is today’s Lovers’ Chronicle from Mac Tag to his muse.  Check us out on Twitter @cowboycoleridge.  I hope Mac Tag keeps up the love song of the day.  I like it.  I also like New Orleans.  I have spent some time there with some beautiful women.  Somethin’ about those Southern Belles.  And I love the Walt Whitman quote below.  Rhett

The Lover’s Chronicle

Dear Muse,

you know how i feel about Dino
so you know the song i picked,
my favorite part, in Italian;
 ‘’Riturno me
Cara mio, ti amo
Solo tu, solo tu
Solo tu, solo tu
Il mio cuore’’
‘’Anything Dean Martin anytime,
tell me who wrote that’’
Carmen Lombardo and Danny Di Minno
’’That explains the Italian part’’
and this explains the best part,
of returnin’ to you,
hurryin’ into your arms

© copyright 2023.2024 mac tag/cowboycoleridge all rights reserved

yes, heard my name called, s’pose this is how this started, though it had to wait many years for a response; i ignored it, denied it, stuffed it in the closet, threw it over the fence, buried it in the backyard, locked it in the basement, even tossed it in the ocean; but it always found a way back, then one day
when i finally found solitude, i sat down to respond and i am still respondin’

© copyright 2022.2023 mac tag/cowboycoleridge all rights reserved

i now think it had to be this way,
for else it could not be that this,
would have ever happened

one i adore,

came and cast away
all that needed to be

in verse, subtle or not so,
cast the first shadows
of what was comin’

an intimacy grown together,

a look to communicate feelin’s
this vision, drawin’ us closer

we belong nowhere else

© 2021.2023 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

Pale Love, Pale Rider

always seemed to have an understandin’,
an intimacy grown together, no longer
needin’ more than a look to communicate
feelin’s to each other, this vision, drawin’
me back whenever whatever removes me,
each time i have felt a loss, i return here

i belong nowhere else

© copyright 2020 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

i now think it had to be this way,
for else it could not be
that this,
would have ever happened

whom i adore,
should come
and cast behind

in verse of as subtle,
as hath the first
that sits in shadows

rest, no more dreams
tonight, i will see to it

© copyright 2019 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

an understandin’
an intimacy
grown together,
no longer needin’
more than a glance
to communicate
feelin’s to each other

this draws me back
whenever whatever
tries to remove me

the only way i can feel
somewhere close to profound,
when i return to this, to you

more and more, only seem
to belong here with you

© copyright 2018 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

“Do you miss me”
Only a lot
Only every day

© copyright 2017 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

Here we go, hell yes
This is what I need:
Hag singin’ about
right back to drinkin’
and what would be the
point of doin’ right

Should write another
holdin’ on song. But
all i can come up
with are hurtin’ songs

All i have left
are hurtin’ songs,
doin’ wrong and
drinkin’ all night
long, and right back
where i belong

© copyright 2015 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

“Wild Bill” Hickok

Today is the birthday of “Wild Bill” Hickok (born James Butler Hickok, Troy Grove, Illinois May 27, 1837 – August 2, 1876 Deadwood, South Dakota); folk character of the American Old West known for his skills as a scout, lawman, marksman, actor, gunfighter and gambler.  Some contemporary reports of his exploits are known to be fiction, but along with his own stories are the basis for much of his fame and reputation.  He went west at age 18 as a fugitive from justice, first working as a stagecoach driver, then as a lawman in the frontier territories of Kansas and Nebraska.  He fought for the Union Army during the American Civil War.  Hickok was involved in several notable shootouts.  He was shot from behind and killed while playing poker in a saloon in Deadwood, Dakota Territory (now South Dakota) by an unsuccessful gambler, Jack McCall. The hand of cards which he supposedly held at the time of his death (black aces and eights) has become known as the “Dead Man’s Hand”.

On March 5, 1876, Hickok married Agnes Thatcher Lake, a 50-year-old circus proprietor in Cheyenne, Wyoming Territory.  Hickok left his new bride a few months later, joining Charlie Utter’s wagon train to seek his fortune in the gold fields of South Dakota.  Martha Jane Cannary, known popularly as Calamity Jane, claimed in her autobiography that she was married to Hickok and had divorced him so he could be free to marry Agnes Lake, but no records have been found that support Jane’s account.  The two were believed to have met for the first time after Jane was released from the guardhouse in Fort Laramie and joined the wagon train in which Hickok was traveling.  The wagon train arrived in Deadwood in July, 1876.  Jane herself confirmed this account in an 1896 newspaper interview, although she claimed she had been hospitalized with illness rather than in the guardhouse.   Shortly before Hickok’s death, he wrote a letter to his new wife, which read in part, “Agnes Darling, if such should be we never meet again, while firing my last shot, I will gently breathe the name of my wife—Agnes—and with wishes even for my enemies I will make the plunge and try to swim to the other shore.”

Today is the birthday of Georges Rouault (Georges Henri Rouault; Paris 27 May 1871 – 13 February 1958 Paris); painter, draughtsman, and printer, whose work is often associated with Fauvism and Expressionism.
In 1907, Rouault commenced a series of paintings dedicated to courts, clowns, and prostitutes. These paintings are interpreted as moral and social criticism. He became attracted to Spiritualism and the dramatic existentialism of the philosopher Jacques Maritain, who remained a close friend for the rest of his life. After that, he dedicated himself to religious subjects. Human nature was always the focus of his interest. Rouault said: “A tree against the sky possesses the same interest, the same character, the same expression as the figure of a human.”

At the end of his life, he burned 300 of his pictures. His reason for doing this was not profound, as he simply felt he would not live to finish them.

Gallery

And today is the birthday of Linda Pastan (Linda B Olenik; The Bronx; May 27, 1932 – January 30, 2023 Chevy Chase, Maryland); poet. From 1991 to 1995 she was Poet Laureate of Maryland.  She was known for writing short poems that address topics like family life, domesticity, motherhood, the female experience, aging, death, loss and the fear of loss, as well as the fragility of life and relationships. Her final collection of poetry was Almost an Elegy, published in 2022.

She married Ira Pastan, a physician and researcher, in 1953. The couple had three children. Pastan died at her home at the age of 90, from complications following cancer surgery.

Verse

I rock and rock
in the warm amnesia of the sun.
When my griefs sing to me
from the bright throats of thrushes
I sing back.

— “Old Woman”

Consider the white space
between words on a page, not just
the margins around them. (…)

Now picture the brief space
before death enters, hat in hand:
these vanishing years, filled with years.’

– “Consider the Space Between Stars”

You must rock your pain in your arms
until it’s asleep, then leave it

in a darkened room
and tiptoe out.

For a moment you will feel
the emptiness of peace.

But in the next room
your pain is already stirring.

Soon it will be
calling your name.

“Instruction”

I came across somethin’ Tennessee Williams wrote that I thought you would appreciate.  I know you feel a magnetic pull towards The Big Easy and the moon, as do I.  I think this will help explain:

“New Orleans and the moon have always seemed to me to have an understanding between them, an intimacy of sisters grown old together, no longer needing more than a speechless look to communicate their feelings to each other.  This lunar aosphere of the city draws me back whenever the waves of energy which removed me to more vital towns have spent themselves and a time of recession is called for.  Each time I have felt some rather profound psychic wound, a loss or failure, I have returned to this city.  At such periods I would seem to belong there and no place else in the country.”

The Angel in the Alcove
Tennessee Williams

Today’s love song comes from Guy Clark – Like a Coat from the Cold

thanks for stoppin’ by y’all

Mac Tag

Matchless with a horse, a rifle, a song, a supper or a courtship.  Walt Whitman

What did my fingers do before they held him? What did my heart do, with its love?  Sylvia Plath