The Lovers’ Chronicle 5 July – when – art by Saint George Hare – André Lhote – birth of Jean Cocteau

Dear Zazie, Hope you had a great 4th!  My hometown survived, I think, the visit from me and Jett and Mac Tag.  Our families helped settle that part of the West and it is always good to return.  We saw some old friends and two-stepped and waltzed the night away at the dance.  Me with a dark haired beauty, Jett with a blonde haired/blue eyed beauty and Mac Tag with a bottle of beer.  Here is today’s Lovers’ Chronicle from Mac Tag to his muse.  Visit us on twitter @cowboycoleridge.  Do you know when? Rhett

The Lover’s Chronicle

Dear Muse,

this song fits the topic and fits me pretty well;
‘’You say it best when you say nothing at all’’
written by Paul Overstreet and Don Schlitz,
recorded by Keith Whitley and Alison Krauss
‘’It is a lovely song and it does suit you’’
yes, not the talkative type, i prefer
to listen and observe, i cannot hear
the next good line if my lips are movin’
’’You actually say it best when you write it’’
and you my dear when you say it or sing it,
hey how bout this, we say it best
to each other in every way

© copyright 2023.2024 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

there have been many when's; anytime confronted by the choice of what to write about, pre-you, always chose the dark route, writin’ is done best comin’ from truest feelin’s and the most authentic sources i had were rooted in what went wrong, in all the poor decisions i had to pay for, there were moments of beauty but they came and went, it was not until i could rid myself of the past that i was able to accept and appreciate love when you walked in

© copyright 2022.2024 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

you are near
i feel your thoughts
you make me laugh
the moonlight glow surrounds you

we found us
searchin’ ended
i have no need for pain
the mornin’ rays shine in your hair

we end each day
i read poetry to you
i feel your skin next to mine
i am with you time slips away as in a dream

we hold on to what we have created

© copyright 2021. 2023 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

Pale Love, Pale Rider

when feelin’
was free and easy

and there was no need
to hide and pretend

or deny

when you were near

but all that is left
to write this, now,
is to draw the ties
that bind in such a way
that they are written,
or to unravel them
in such a way that
i can be near to you

© copyright 2020 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

feel the brakes,
the overflow again
about life flarin’,
makes me dizzy

used to not know how to tell
livin’ in perpetual expectancy

so much in the searchin’
and then you remember
and turn away in tears

then you, and it all slips away
it finds you, when you need it

© copyright 2019 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

when feelin’
was free and easy

and there was no need
to hide and pretend

or deny

when you were near

© copyright 2018 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

i sit to write
ritual has set in
how i know
this is here to stay

the only way to explain
to myself and anyone
who will listen, what
happened, why
the chances taken
worked out or did not

not doin’ this for salvation,
not sure that exists, but
if found, that would be
the gravy on top

© copyright 2017.2023 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

He was not fleein’
It was only that
Absence, removal
Was the only
Argument he knew

© copyright 2016 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

When you were near to me
When I felt your excitement
When you made me feel dizzy
When I was with you
When time slipped away
As in a dream

When love found me
When I was not searchin’
When I had no need for tears
When you were with me
When the mornin’ rays
Shone in your hair

© Cowboy Coleridge mac tag copyright 2012 all rights reserved

Today is the birthday of André Lhote (Bordeaux 5 July 1885 – 24 January 1962 Paris); Cubist painter of figure subjects, portraits, landscapes and still life.  He was also very active and influential as a teacher and writer on art.

After initially working in a Fauvist style, Lhote shifted towards Cubism and joined the Section d’Or group in 1912, exhibiting at the Salon de la Section d’Or.

Gallery

And today is the birthday of Jean Cocteau (Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau; Maisons-Laffitte, France 5 July 1889 – 11 October 1963 Milly-la-Foret, France); writer, designer, playwright, artist and filmmaker.  Perhaps best known for his novel Les Enfants Terribles (1929), and the films Blood of a Poet (1930), Les Parents Terribles (1948), Beauty and the Beast (1946) and Orpheus (1949).

Cocteau never hid his bisexuality. He was the author of the mildly homoerotic and semi-autobiographical Le Livre blanc (translated as The White Paper or The White Book), published anonymously in 1928. He never repudiated its authorship and a later edition of the novel features his foreword and drawings. The novel begins:

As far back as I can remember, and even at an age when the mind does not yet influence the senses, I find traces of my love of boys. I have always loved the strong sex that I find legitimate to call the fair sex. My misfortunes came from a society that condemns the rare as a crime and forces us to reform our inclinations.

Frequently his work, either literary (Les enfants terribles), graphic (erotic drawings, book illustration, paintings) or cinematographic (The Blood of a Poet, Orpheus, Beauty and the Beast), is pervaded with homosexual undertones, homoerotic imagery/symbolism or camp. In 1947 Paul Morihien published a clandestine edition of Querelle de Brest by Jean Genet, featuring 29 very explicit erotic drawings by Cocteau. In recent years several albums of Cocteau’s homoerotica have been available to the general public.

In the 1930s, Cocteau is rumoured to have had a very brief affair with Princess Natalie Paley, the daughter of a Romanov Grand Duke and herself a sometime actress, model, and former wife of couturier Lucien Lelong.

Cocteau’s longest-lasting relationships were with French actors Jean Marais and Édouard Dermit, whom Cocteau formally adopted. Cocteau cast Marais in The Eternal Return (1943), Beauty and the Beast (1946), Ruy Blas (1947), and Orpheus (1949).

Cocteau died of a heart attack at his chateau at the age of 74.  His friend the French singer Édith Piaf died the day before but that was announced on the morning of Cocteau’s day of death; it has been said that his heart failed upon hearing of Piaf’s death.  According to his wishes Cocteau is buried beneath the floor of the Chapelle Saint-Blaise des Simples in Milly-la-Forêt.  The epitaph on his gravestone set in the floor of the chapel reads: “I stay with you” (“Je reste avec vous”).

quotes

Mettez un lieu commun en place, nettoyez-le, frottez-le, éclairez-le de telle sorte qu’il frappe avec sa jeunesse et avec la même fraîcheur, le même jet qu’il avait à sa source, vous ferez œuvre de poète. Tout le reste est littérature.

Écrire, pour moi, c’est dessiner, nouer les lignes de telle sorte qu’elles se fassent écriture, ou les dénouer de telle sort que l’écriture devienne dessin.

Âmes. Si cela était possible, j’aimerais ouvrir un institut de beauté pour les âmes Non que la mienne soit belle ni que je compte faire des miracles, mais afin que le client soigne sa ligne interne et s’y accroche quelle qu’elle soit

thanks for stoppin’ by y’all

Mac Tag

I never feel the brakes. I overflow. And when I feel your excitement about life flaring, next to mine, then it makes me dizzy.  Anais Nin

I don’t know how to tell you what I feel. I live in perpetual expectancy. You come & the time slips away in a dream.  Anais Nin

You don’t find love, it finds you. It’s got a little bit to do with destiny, fate, and what’s written in the stars.  Anais Nin

There is so much hurt in this game of searching for a mate. And you realize suddenly that you forgot it was a game, and turn away in tears.  Sylvia Plath

...the morning rays
Shone many times among the glimmering flowers
Woven into her hair...

W.B. Yeats