The Lovers’ Chronicle 10 August – maybe – art by William Harnett – death of The Menken – verse by Jorge Amado

Dear Zazie,  Howzit goin’?  Workin’ hard and writin’ hard here.  Here is today’s Lovers’ Chronicle from Mac Tag to his muse.  Follow us on twitter @cowboycoleridge.  Do you burn with the flame of ecstasy or do you burn in the nightmare of not havin’ ecstasy?  Rhett

The Lovers’ Chronicle

Dear Muse,

takin’ the easy way out on a song,
yes, goin’ with Paul McCartney
’’One of the best ever love songs’’
this is my favorite line;
’’Maybe I’m amazed at the way you help me sing my song
You right me when I’m wrong’’
‘’Powerful words and a beautiful melody’’
i hold in highest regard
those who can write music and lyrics
‘’I like the line;
 ‘’won’t you help me to understand’’
because we have helped each other 
‘’And maybe we’re amazed’’

© copyright 2023.2024 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

“Yes or no, i have to know’’; if you are layin’ down have to, then you know my answer; “Oh you are maddening’’; i have been told; “See, another example”; c’mon, let me fix you a drink, and we can go sit on the balcony in the moonlight and i will tell you the story a different way and maybe you will see

© copyright 2022.2023 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

a word that comes in handy
when hedgin’ is called for;
sandwiched between yes and no
i have used it
to replace the word hope
in some of my old poems
as in; meetin’ her filled me with maybe
hope now feels too dramatic, too maudlin
besides, i never met her,
and now with you,
i do not need her

© copyright 2021.2023 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

Pale Love, Pale Rider

can you hear me
are you listenin’
because it matters

i write this
for you

the words
of hope and beauty,
of passion and desire
they are you

whatever is inside
that allows one to need,
to let go and be consumed
by intimacy, breathes again

wave on wave,
thanks to you

© copyright 2020 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

to burn
as hard
as possible
to maintain

knowin’
lookin’
further

touch
feelin’

when never
without

chafe
against
the want
old outcries
the emptiness

inevitable,
perhaps,
the return

to burn once more
from deprivation
to acceptance
yieldin’

***

y’all please raise
an orison for me
gonna need it

once more
unto the breach,
dear friends…

© copyright 2019 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

“I can’t, I’m damaged.”
darlin’, we are all damaged
“OK, well you show me yours
and I’ll show you mine!”
oh, how do i count the ways…

but really, it comes down
to one flaw, perhaps fatal
whatever it is inside
that allows one to need,
to let go and be consumed
by intimacy, is broken
i believe irreparably

© copyright 2018 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

can you hear me
are you listenin’
does it even matter

i want to write
words of passion
for you, but
they will not come

i search, in vain
the only words i find,
are ones of loss
and the lack thereof

maybe there are words
of hope and beauty,
of passion and desire
maybe they are you

i do not know

© copyright 2017 mac tag/cowboy Coleridge all rights reserved

lady friend at the gym:
“I’ve been married 31 years”
wait what… 31 years
are y’all heavily medicated
“No’’
insert stupefied look of incomprension

© copyright 2016 mac tag/cowboy Coleridge all rights reserved

Lurkin’ immortality, allurin’
Laurelled consoler scary to behold,
Death is a womb, a mother’s breast, she feigns

The fine illusion, damn the pious trick
Who does not know, and who is not made ill
That empty skull, that everlastin’ grin

Time of trouble
Bewilderment
Could not foresee
nor foretell. But
surely cherished
at the goin’
down of the sun
These thoughts of you

So we made haste
to be happy,
as if we knew
that we were not
to be happy

© copyright 2015 mac tag/cowboy Coleridge all rights reserved

Nest Of Flames

To burn always this hard,
to maintain this ecstasy…

Neither livin’ nor dead
Knowin’ nothin’
Lookin’ into the heart of light
Hearin’ the silence

Then, found at last

That which had been searched for
For timeless years
A touch and a feelin’

To know what it is
To burn so hard
To maintain an ecstasy
To never be without

But in that beginnin’
Was an inevitable end
The openin’ of a wound
The return of silence

My heart chafes against the want of you
The unavailin’ outcries
The old bitterness
The emptiness

To burn this hard;
there is no ecstasy
just this nightmare,
just this nest of flames

© copyright 2012 mac tag Cowboy Coleridge all rights reserved

Today is the birthday of William Harnett (William Michael Harnett; Clonakilty, County Cork, Ireland; August 10, 1848 – October 29, 1892 New York City); painter known for his trompe-l’œil still lifes of ordinary objects. Crippling rheumatism plagued Harnett in his last years, reducing the number but not the quality of his paintings. He was interred at the Old Cathedral Cemetery in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 

Gallery

The Song of the Day is ATB – “Ecstasy”

On this day in 1868, actress, painter and poet, Adah Isaacs Menken died in Paris.  She was a dark haired beauty and she wrote the followin’ poem.

Answer Me

I

In from the night.
The storm is lifting his black arms up to the sky.
Friend of my heart, who so gently marks out the lifetrack for me, draw near to-night;
Forget the wailing of the low-voiced wind:
Shut out the moanings of the freezing, and the starving, and the dying, and bend your head low to me:
Clasp my cold, cold hands in yours;
Think of me tenderly and lovingly:
Look down into my eyes the while I question you, and if you love me, answer me—
Oh, answer me!

II

Is there not a gleam of Peace on all this tiresome earth?
Does not one oasis cheer all this desert-world?
When will all this toil and pain bring me the blessing?
Must I ever plead for help to do the work before me set?
Must I ever stumble and faint by the dark wayside?
Oh the dark, lonely wayside, with its dim-sheeted ghosts peering up through their shallow graves!
Must I ever tremble and pale at the great Beyond?
Must I find Rest only in your bosom, as now I do?
Answer me—
Oh, answer me!

III

Speak to me tenderly.
Think of me lovingly.
Let your soft hands smooth back my hair.
Take my cold, tear-stained face up to yours.
Let my lonely life creep into your warm bosom, knowing no other rest but this.
Let me question you, while sweet Faith and Trust are folding their white robes around me.
Thus am I purified, even to your love, that came like John the Baptist in the Wilderness of Sin.
You read the starry heavens, and lead me forth.
But tell me if, in this world’s Judea, there comes never quiet when once the heart awakes?
Why must it ever hush Love back?
Must it only labor, strive, and ache?
Has it no reward but this?
Has it no inheritance but to bear—and break?
Answer me—
Oh, answer me!

IV

The Storm struggles with the Darkness.
Folded away in your arms, how little do I heed their battle!
The trees clash in vain their naked swords against the door.
I go not forth while the low murmur of your voice is drifting all else back to silence.
The darkness presses his black forehead close to the window pane, and beckons me without.
Love holds a lamp in this little room that hath power to blot back Fear.
But will the lamp ever starve for oil?
Will its blood-red flame ever grow faint and blue?
Will it uprear itself to a slender line of light?
Will it grow pallid and motionless?
Will it sink rayless to everlasting death?
Answer me—
Oh, answer me!

V

Look at these tear-drops.
See how they quiver and die on your open hands.
Fold these white garments close to my breast, while I question you.
Would you have me think that from the warm shelter of your heart I must go to the grave?
And when I am lying in my silent shroud, will you love me?
When I am buried down in the cold, wet earth, will you grieve that you did not save me?
Will your tears reach my pale face through all the withered leaves that will heap themselves upon my grave?
Will you repent that you loosened your arms to let me fall so deep, and so far out of sight?
Will you come and tell me so, when the coffin has shut out the storm?
Answer me—
Oh, answer me!

Jorge Amado

And today is the birthday of Jorge Amado (Jorge Leal Amado de Faria; Itabuna, Bahia, Brazil 10 August 1912 – 6 August 2001 Salvador, Bahia, Brazil); writer of the modernist school.  He remains the best known of modern Brazilian writers, with his work having been translated into some 49 languages and popularized in film, notably Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands in 1978.  His work reflects the image of a Mestiço Brazil.  He depicted a cheerful and optimistic country that was beset, at the same time, with deep social and economic differences.  He occupied the 23rd chair of the Brazilian Academy of Letters from 1961 until his death in 2001.

He married Matilde Garcia Rosa. His second wife was Zélia Gattai (São Paulo July 2, 1916 – May 17, 2008 Salvador, Bahia, Brazil); photographer, memoirist, novelist and author of children’s literature, as well as a member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters.

Verse

• “-Você sabe qual é a melhor coisa do mundo?

-’Qual é, minha tia?
-Adivinhe.
-Mulher…
-Não.
-Cachaça…
-Não.
-Feijoada…
-Não sabe o que é? É cavalo. Se não fosse cavalo, branco montava em negro…”

O amor não se prova, nem se mede. É como Gabriela. Existe, isso basta – falou João Fulgêncio. – O fato de não se compreender ou explicar uma coisa não acaba com ela. Nada sei das estrelas, mas as vejo no céu, são a beleza da noite.
– ‘Gabriela, Cravo e Canela’.

I was neither Living nor dead, and I knew nothing, Looking into the heart of light, the silence. – T.S. Eliot

One can never ask anyone to change a feeling. – Susan Sontag

In my beginning is my end. – T.S. Eliot

You would have thought it foolish to speak to the dead/but all this time I have carried you in my head – Richard Hoffman

So live with men as if God saw you and speak to God, as if men heard you. ~ Seneca

I am tired, Beloved, of chafing my heart against The want of you… – Amy Lowell

...and put away
The unavailing outcries and the old bitterness
That empty the heart.

– W.B. Yeats

The advantage of the emotions is that they lead us astray. – Oscar Wilde

Go gather by the humming sea
Some twisted, echo-harbouring shell,
And to its lips thy story tell,
And they thy comforters will be...

– W.B. Yeats

Extase, cauchemar, sommeil dans un nid de flammes. (Ecstasy, nightmare, sleep in a nest of flames.) – Arthur Rimbaud

Love is not the last room: there are others after it, the whole length of the corridor that has no end. – Yehuda Amichai

I can only speak the way light falls… – Catherine Barnett

A not admitting of the wound Until it grew so wide That all my Life had entered it. – Emily Dickinson