The Lovers’ Chronicle 29 June – see – birth of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry – death of Elizabeth Barrett Browning – art by Robert Laurent

Dear Zazie, Today’s Lovers’ Chronicle from Mac Tag to his muse.  Follow us on twitter @cowboycoleridge.  Any big plans for the 4th Z?  I will be in my hometown for the 4th of July Rodeo and Parade.  See if I cain’t find me a pretty cowgirl to do some two-steppin’ with.  Can you see? Rhett

The Lovers’ Chronicle

Dear Muse,

see the dream…

the song came quickly
and fits perfectly
with where i was five years ago;
‘’I can see clearly now the rain is gone
I can see all obstacles in my way
Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind’’
written by Johnny Nash and recorded by many
’’What else can be said about a great song’’
i said it fit perfectly but i never thought
i would see all hazards on the trail
till i got here and now i believe i can
‘’Because we got this, whatever happens’’
gonna be a sunny ride from here on out

© copyright 2023.2024 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

this can be tricky, are you seein’ what you want or what is really there; under the influence of deception for many years, everything was clouded by what i wanted, what i thought was supposed to be, tryin’ to force myself into the cookie cutter, this is the way it should be for everyone happy ever after bullshit, damn it is exhaustin’ just thinkin’ about it; took the long way around  figurin’ out i could not be that, but just in time to clearly focus on toi et moi

© copyright 2022.2024 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

“ah the secret
quite simple
one can only see
with the heart;
what matters
is invisible
to the eyes”

what survives,
hidden so well

let us see
what we can see
be what we can be
all that matters
since we are here
somehow

you are beautiful,
you are full

as seen from the heart

© copyright 2021 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

Pale Love, Pale Rider

how do i,
well you know
i could count the ways
but i know you are not
impressed by that

suffice to say
i have seen
what no one
has ever tried to be

we were made to see
and surely i have shown
how i feel, how i believe
in the verse,
every day of these
past 10 years

© copyright 2020 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

still tryin’ to git my bearin’s
settlin’ in to new surroundin’s
the discipline of the routine
will win out, sure of that
it has kept me straight
for two years
not lettin’ go of that
for anything or anyone
regardless of how
pretty her smile
might be

© copyright 2019.2024 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

no secret
it is rather simple…
you can only see
once you let go,
after you have come
to own your ownself
only then
will the essentials
become visible

what embellishes
the desert, a sunset
you know
you feel

you have to look

you have to be

© copyright 2018 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

clearer now
not up to clearly yet;
road trippin’ this week
unto the breach once more
but then right back to where
i should be writin’ my way
towards clarity on who
i am and pursuin’
my purpose

© copyright 2017.2024 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

Never mind me
Just sittin’ here
Pinin’ away
Surveyin’ a
vast prairie of
wasted chances

© copyright 2015 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

Today is the birthday of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (Antoine Marie Jean-Baptiste Roger, Vicomte de Saint-Exupéry; Lyon, France 29 June 1900 – c. 31 July 1944 44 Mediterranean Sea, off Marseille, Occupied France); writer, poet, journalist and aviator. He received several prestigious literary awards for his novella The Little Prince (Le Petit Prince) and for his lyrical aviation writings, including Wind, Sand and Stars and Night Flight (Vol de nuit). His works have been translated into many languages.

Saint-Exupéry was a successful commercial pilot before World War II, working airmail routes in Europe, Africa, and South America. He joined the French Air Force at the start of the war, flying reconnaissance missions until France’s armistice with Germany in 1940. After being demobilised by the French Air Force, he travelled to the United States to help persuade its government to enter the war against Nazi Germany.

Saint-Exupéry spent 28 months in the United States of America, during which he wrote three of his most important works, then joined the Free French Air Force in North Africa, even though he was far past the maximum age for such pilots and in declining health. He disappeared and is believed to have died while on a reconnaissance mission from the French island of Corsica over the Mediterranean. Although the wreckage of his plane was discovered off the coast of Marseille in 2000, the ultimate cause of the crash remains unknown.

Saint-Ex had a muse, his wife though they had a tumultuous marriage.

She was Consuelo Suncin (Consuelo Suncín de Sandoval 10 April 1901 Armenia, El Salvador – 28 May 1979 (aged 78) Grasse, France) a twice-widowed Salvadoran countess, writer and artist, who reportedly possessed a bohemian spirit and a “viper’s tongue”.   Saint-Ex, thoroughly enchanted by the diminutive woman, would leave and then return to her many times – she was both his muse and over the long term the source of much of his angst.  Saint-Ex travelled frequently and indulged in numerous affairs, most notably with the Frenchwoman Hélène de Vogüé (1908–2003), known as ‘Nellie’ and referred to as “Madame de B.” in Saint-Ex biographies.

quotes

Voici mon secret. Il est très simple: on ne voit bien qu’avec le cœur. L’essentiel est invisible pour les yeux.

Ce qui embellit le désert, dit le petit prince, c’est qu’il cache un puits quelque part…

J’aime bien les couchers de soleil. Allons voir un coucher de soleil…

C’est véritablement utile puisque c’est joli.

Vous êtes belles, mais vous êtes vides…. On ne peut pas mourir pour vous.

Mais les yeux sont aveugles. Il faut chercher avec le cœur.

Beware the 29th of June if you are a woman as at least four notable women, a poet and three actresses, died on this day; Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1861), Jayne Mansfield (1967), Lana Turner (1995), and Katharine Hepburn (2003).

Browning is noted for her poetry as well as her marriage to fellow poet Robert Browning.  I never tire of tellin’ this story so here goes.  They met on 20 May 1845, and so began one of the most famous courtships in literature.  Two of Barrett’s most famous pieces were produced after she met Browning, Sonnets from the Portuguese (Portuguese was his pet name for her) and Aurora Leigh.  Robert’s Men and Women is a product of that time.  The courtship and marriage between Robert and Elizabeth were carried out secretly as she and her siblings were convinced their father would disapprove.  Six years his elder and an invalid, she could not believe that the vigorous and worldly Robert really loved her as much as he professed to.  After a private marriage at St. Marylebone Parish Church, they honeymooned in Paris.  Browning then imitated his hero Percy Bysshe Shelley by spiriting his wife off to Italy, in September 1846, which became her home almost continuously until her death.  She died in Florence in his arms at the age of 55.  Robert said that she died “smilingly, happily, and with a face like a girl’s. … Her last word was—… ‘Beautiful’”.  We should all be so lucky.

And today is the birthday of Robert Laurent (Concarneau, France; June 29, 1890 – April 20, 1970 Cape Neddick, Maine); modernist figurative sculptor, printmaker and teacher. His work, the New York Times wrote,”figured in the development of an American sculptural art that balanced nature and abstraction.”

Widely exhibited, he took part in the Whitney’s 1946 exhibition Pioneers of Modern Art. Credited as the first American sculptor to adopt a “direct carving” sculpting style that was bolder and more abstract than the then traditional fine arts practice, which relied on models, Laurent’s approach was inspired by the African carving and European avant-garde art he admired, while also echoing folk styles found both in the U.S. and among medieval stone cutters of his native Brittany. Perhaps best known for his virtuoso mastery of the figure, Laurent sculpted in multiple media, including wood, alabaster, bronze, marble and aluminum. His expertise earned him major commissions for public sculpture, most famously for the Goose Girl for New York City’s Radio City Music Hall, as well as for Spanning the Continent for Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park. After the Depression, he was also the recipient of several Works Progress Administration (WPA) Federal Art Project commissions under the New Deal, including a bas-relief called Shipping for the exterior of Washington, D.C.’s Federal Trade Commission Building, commissioned by the Treasury Department’s Section of Fine Arts in 1938.

Gallery

thanks for stoppin’ by y’all

Mac Tag

Today’s Song of the Day Townes Van Zandt – Lover’s Lullaby http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSIp2dGxeqY&feature=related

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Not a tear must o'er her fall;
He giveth His belovèd, sleep.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

You were made perfectly to be loved – and surely I have loved you, in the idea of you, my whole life long.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I spy entertainment in her; she discourses, she carves, she gives the leer of invitation.

Shakespeare

She carries in the candles,
And lights the curtained room,
Shy in the doorway
And shy in the gloom.

W. B. Yeats