The Lovers’ Chronicle 31 July – bear away – art by Jacques Villon & Erich Heckel – death of Franz Liszt

Dear Zazie,  Here is today’s Lovers’ Chronicle from Mac Tag to his muse.  Follow us on twitter @cowboycoleridge.  Have you experienced these three forms of love; exalted, erotic and unconditional?  Rhett

The Lovers’ Chronicle

Dear Muse,

this theme was not picked
with a song in mind
“Certainly not an obvious one”
i have a book in mind, by Flannery
“Yes, the violent would do it”
might be where i got this
without the religious bent
for me it was about
findin’ a way to process
regret, pain, disappointment
“And you did”
yep, all borne away

© copyright 2023 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

full of hidden meanin’, recallin’ past images, reawakenin’ memories; in the far away; they were presentiments of an existence to come, future incarnation, expectation of marvels, answers to the indefinable expectations, horizons to open, ardently longed for, borne away

© copyright 2022 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

with each word
each poem and story
past regrets buried
old disappointments
and wrong turns laid to rest
best therapy for me;
might have been helpful
to figure that out sooner
but better late than not at all;
took three years to bear it all away
so that i can focus on now
and what is to come

© copyright 2021.2023 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

Pale Love, Pale Rider

this could do it

it begins,
with you in my arms
readin’ what i have written
for you, so you can hear
how it should flow, how
it feels as my breath
rises and falls

only then can we be
where i intended

it ends,
with two entwined
where curiosity
and anticipation merge

© copyright 2020 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

quiet place, where dreams come

on the mesa, mute against time
impartial clouds pattern the valley
view and sky goin’ on and thoughts,
so rewardin’ this long vista of lucidity

light, words go to form rhythm
drawn from this source
the first light streakin’ your hair

***

for Pamela

there you have it
good goddamn thing
it ain’t happenin’
because it would not
matter anyway

see, i keep tellin’ y’all
ain’t no point in tryin’

© copyright 2019 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

recallin’ past images
not all that i do
but it leads to you

in the rearview,
their were signs
of what could be
future incarnations

the answers are there
to the expectations,
indefinable

some horizons have closed
others have opened
now that understandin’
is at hand

certain, some regret
is borne away
for all that is lost,
for all not found

but just look
at what was discovered

and of you
what could be

***

NOLA Girl – there isnt a way to explain how to speak with a ghost nor how to know one is there if you dont already know it. Or at least that has been my experience. You just sort of look up from buttering a biscuit and they hand you the jelly…

i only know She is there
when She gets in my bed

© copyright 2018 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

full of hidden meanin’
recallin’ past images
reawakenin’ memories

in the far away,
they were presentiments
of existences to come
future incarnations
expectations of marvels

but there are no answers
to the indefinable expectations
all has narrowed and darkened
vague recollections now blurred

the horizons have closed
without ever havin’ understood
the cause of those mirages

and i bear away the regret
for i know not what lost home
i failed to find, for the unknown
ardently longed for, but never embraced

© copyright 2017 mac tag/cowboy Coleridge all rights reserved

Layin’ beside me
Soft hands touchin’ me
I thought it was you
But no one was there

The intimations of a secret proof
Sensual, dark, and eternal reserve
Depths deceptively beyond mortal reach

But know you, protector of the beyond
Gulf which casts up her forbidden passion
Secret which dazzles so, through eyes shut tight

© copyright 2015 mac tag/cowboy Coleridge all rights reserved

Today is the birthday of Jacques Villon (Emile Méry Frédéric Gaston Duchamp; Damville, Eure, Haute-Normandie, France; July 31, 1875 – June 9, 1963 Puteaux, Hauts-de-Seine, France); Cubist painter and printmaker.  Villon was the elder brother of sculptor Raymond Duchamp-Villon, painter, sculptor, author Marcel Duchamp, and painter Suzanne Duchamp-Crotti.  To distinguish himself from his siblings, Gaston Duchamp adopted the pseudonym of Jacques Villon as a tribute to the French medieval poet François Villon.

Gallery

Today is the birthday of Erich Heckel (Döbeln, Germany 31 July 1883 – 27 January 1970 Radolfzell, Germany); painter and printmaker, and a founding member of the group Die Brücke (“The Bridge”) which existed 1905–1913. His work was part of the art competitions at the 1928 Summer Olympics and the 1932 Summer Olympics.

Gallery

And it was on this day in 1886, that Hungarian composer and virtuoso pianist Franz Liszt died.  Among my favorite Liszt compositions are the Liebesträume (German for Dreams of Love), a set of three solo piano works, published in 1850.  Originally the three Liebesträume were conceived as songs after poems by Ludwig Uhland and Ferdinand Freiligrath.  The two poems by Uhland and the one by Freiligrath depict three different forms of love.  Uhland’s Hohe Liebe (Exalted Love) is saintly, or religious, love: the “martyr” renounces worldly love and “heaven has opened its gates”.  The second song Seliger Tod (Holy Death) is often known by its first line (“Gestorben war ich”) (“I was dead”), and evokes erotic love; “dead” could be a metaphor here referrin’ to what is known as “la petite mort” in French (“I was dead from love’s bliss; I lay buried in her arms; I was wakened by her kisses; I saw heaven in her eyes”).  Freiligrath’s poem for the famous third Notturno is about unconditional mature love, and warnin’ that love lost is miserable: “Love as long as you can! The hour will come when you will stand at graves and mourn” (“O lieb, so lang du lieben kannst”).

My love for you was exalted, erotic and unconditional.  And I can confirm, sadly, that the warnin’ of the Notturno is all too real.

Mac Tag

The song of the day is Liebesträume by Franz Liszt

thanks for stoppin’ by y’all

Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go. – Oscar Wilde

We all live in our own dream-worlds and make and re-make our own personal realities with tender and loving care. – Sylvia Plath

I’m hunting for the truth.  It might be a kind of poetic truth, and not just a factual one because behind everything that happens to you, there is another truth, a secret life. – Anne Sexton

The only wisdom we can hope to acquire is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless. – T.S. Eliot

Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Pray for us now and at the hour of our death. – T.S. Eliot

Sermons and creeds and theology . . . . but the human brain, and what is called reason, and what is called love, and what is called life? – Walt Whitman

I wish that every human life might be pure transparent freedom. – Simone de Beauvoir

O little did they care who danced between,
And little she by whom her dance was seen
So she had outdanced thought.

– W.B. Yeats

If it doesn’t look easy, you aren’t working hard enough. –  Fred Astaire

I forced myself to contradict myself in order to avoid conforming to my own taste. – Marcel Duchamp

The muses’ decision to sing or not to sing is not based on the elevation of your moral purpose. – John Barth