The Lovers’ Chronicle 13 August – storms – art by George Luks – death of Massenet – premiere of Jewel Robbery – photography by Herb Ritts

Dear Zazie,  Here is today’s Lovers’ Chronicle from Mac Tag to his muse.  Follow us on twitter @cowboycoleridge.  Has love left you?  Have you watched it leave and thought, ah, flee, sweet image?  Rhett

The Lovers’ Chronicle

Dear Muse,

first song i thought of,
written by Jessi Colter for Waylon;
’’Storms never last do they baby’’
’’No matter how big they are’’
right, though i can think of a few
that i thought would never end
’’We weathered our share pre-us’’
they are in the rear view now
even the meteorological kind
there ain’t nothin’ like
thunderstorms on the High Plains
‘’And when I experience my first’’
we will withstand it together
because we last

© copyright 2023.2024 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

what hath the forecast in store, what gales lie ahead, matters not, they will be weathered; cannot be fazed, dissuaded or blown off course, not braggin’, not throwin’ down a gauntlet or darin’ anyone or thing, just the way it is, when one has held on through the worst the skies and life have to offer

© copyright 2022.2023 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

weathered more
than a few to git here
a time or two,
blown so far of course,
thought i might not find my way back
but i did, each time pickin’ myself up,
assessin’ the damage
and put the pieces
together again
thanks to duct tape
and super glue

now with you
i am not concerned
about the forecast

© copyright 2021.2023 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

Pale Love, Pale Rider

for Gay

and just like that
we pull each other in

humid twilight fallin’
cicadas layin’ down
a rhythmic chorus
from the trees

if i focus
i can see you
and it all comes back

the touches
the looks
the feelin’s

how it would be
with desire unbound

wave on wave
and i want more

© copyright 2020 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

nothin’ like the ones
on the High Plains
nothin’ like
the self inflicted ones
time spent on the porch
watchin’ em roll in
time spent at my desk
writin’ as the echoes
from the personal ones
rumble and blow the words;
weathered ’em all so far
wonder when the forecast
will call for the next one

© copyright 2019.2023 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

“What do you do
to get by?”
i take pleasure
in great beauty

Regardez-moi bien
dans les yeux
tell me one more time…

certainly a mantra,
stretch as far as you can
in all things, even sadness
hey, if you can feel it,
means you are still alive

what is it, that is never changed
even though everything has changed
tell me again

© copyright 2018 mac tag/cowboy coleridge

Sunday mornin’ comin’ down…
another cool summer mornin’
screen porch, coffee, cigar
writin’, listenin’ to Massenet

***

more thunderstorms tonight
more reminiscin’…
our first thunderstorm
when the power went out
i sketched you by candlelight

if only…
but of course,
time has no sense
of romance
or humor
time ticked along
expectin’ us to follow
if only we had

rooms of fire
and unbound desire…
not sure about all of that
all i know is that we were us
and that was enough

and now,
in solitude,
the only meanin’
i can find
is in this verse
and in the lines
of sketches,
of you

***

y’all know
I will never complain
about the rain, but c’mon
do we really need
to git a month’s worth
in two days

© copyright 2017 mac tag/cowboy Coleridge all rights reserved

Ah, fuyez douce image
Ah, flee sweet image
Grief lies onward
Joy behind
The flame of twilight
Hangs low on the rim
Of the high plains

© copyright 2016 Mac tag cowboy Coleridge all rights reserved

Now, the future futility unfolds
Shattered memories, meditation’s mold
To drink in the wind’s revival or not

A freshness, exhalation of the plains,
Restores souls with life-breathin’ potency
To run at the wind, hurled back to livin’

Lucky is he
who gits to be
inside her mind

© copyright 2015 Mac tag cowboy Coleridge all rights reserved

George Luks
Gertrude Käsebier, George Luks, c.1910

Today is the birthday of George Luks (George Benjamin Luks; Williamsport, Pennsylvania; August 13, 1867–October 29, 1933 New York City); realist artist and illustrator.  His painted genre paintings of urban subjects are examples of the Ashcan School of American art.

Luks was married twice but had no children. 

Luks was found dead in a doorway by a policeman. Ira Glackens, the son of his friend the artist William Glackens, wrote about Luks’s death that, contrary to the newspaper account stating that the painter had succumbed on his way to paint the dawn sky, he had actually been beaten to death in an altercation with a customer at a nearby bar.

His funeral was attended by family, former students, and past and present friends. He was buried in an 18th-century embroidered waistcoat, one of his most valued possessions. He is buried at Fernwood Cemetery in Royersford, Pennsylvania.

Gallery

On this day in 1912, French opera composer Jules Massenet died in Paris.  My favorite Massenet opera is Manon.  This is the sad story of a young girl, Manon Lescaut, from the French countryside who is on her way to a convent but instead turns into a Parisian prostitute, betraying her true love, the Chevalier Des Grieux.  In the aria, “Adieu, notre petite table” (“Goodbye, our little table”), after vacillatin’ in her decision she bids farewell to the humble domesticity she has shared.  In the aria “Ah, fuyez douce image” (Ah, flee, sweet image), Des Grieux tries to mentally banish the love of his life.

As he well knew, as I have come to know, there is no amount of tryin’ that can banish the pain of love leavin’.

And today is the birthday of Herb Ritts (Herbert Ritts Jr.; Los Angeles; August 13, 1952 – December 26, 2002 Los Angeles); fashion photographer and director known for his photographs of celebrities, models, and other cultural figures throughout the 1980s and 1990s. His work concentrated on black and white photography and portraits, often in the style of classical Greek sculpture, which emphasized the human shape.

He was in a relationship with entertainment lawyer Erik Hyman from 1996 until his death from pneumonia aged 50.

Gallery

Mac Tag

The songs of the day: Anna Netrebko as Manon “Adieu, notre petite table”

Luciano Pavarotti as Chevalier Des Grieux “Ah, fuyez douce image“

My grief lies onward and my joy behind. – Shakespeare

the flame of the blue star of twilight, hung low on the rim of the sky,
Has awakened in our hearts, my beloved, a sadness that may not die.

– W.B. Yeats

Never mind whose got a better or worse body & mind, but stretch yours as far as you can. – Sylvia Plath

What is it that is never changed even though everything is changed? It is love. – Søren Kierkegaard

O amor é, de todas as paixões, a mais forte, pois ataca simultaneamente a cabeça, o coração e os sentidos.  (Love is, of all the passions, the strongest, nipping at the head, the heart and senses.) – Voltaire

but one cannot, perhaps, love or believe at all if one does not love or believe a little too much. – W.B. Yeats