The Lovers’ Chronicle 20 September – promise – art by Théodore Chassériau – verse by Stevie Smith

Dear Zazie,  Here is yesterday’s Lovers’ Chronicle from Mac Tag to his muse.  Follow us on twitter @cowboycoleridge.  Are you too far out?  Will you promise to tell? Rhett

The Lovers’ Chronicle

Dear Muse,

promise of a dream…
ok this must be a dream because
i am hearin’ some kinda odd mashup 
of the Naked Eyes’ ‘’Promises, Promises’’
and Aerosmith’s ‘’Lick and a Promise’’;
’’He gave the ladies
A lick and a
Promises, promises’’

© copyright 2024 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

this day did not
start out bein’ about
Stevie Smith’s poem
“Not Waving but Drowning”
but it quickly turned that way
“Powerful little poem”
yes, the emotion,
the succinctness,
the imagery of bein’
lost and askin’ for help
and no one noticin’
“So how does promise fit in”
of each day’s sunrise
of you, of us
not too far out

© copyright 2023 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

spent most of these threescore years either too far out or way too far out, tried to play it to the american dream script but could not git it right, too independent, too bent, hell if i know, only ever been worth a damn when driven by inspiration; the promise in each sunrise, in each new poem

© copyright 2022.2023 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

not too far out now
after all the twists
and turns found
a way forward

with the verse and visions
pullin’, guidin’ us through
takin’ us where we thought
we would not go again

actually, beyond
neither of us
have been here before
a place we only
ever read about

this promise
of the tie that binds

© copyright 2021.2023 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

Pale Love, Pale Rider

much too far out
most of the time

but found my way back
through volumes of verse

there is purpose here
but more i believe,
in sharin’

the convoluted path
had to be, or it never
would have happened

and it was well worth
the price of admission
to get to you, to now

© copyright 2020 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

still too far out
still ok with that
have everything i need
you to come home to
the words to inspire
visions to follow
stories to tell
no better place
or companionship
can be had

i know what you are thinkin’,
no, no need for anything
or anyone else
i promise i will be fine

© copyright 2019.2023 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

yes, agree
much too far out
most of the time

past the point of wishin’
no purpose there
what was done was
and what was not
was not

but really
could not think
about doin’ it
another way

the beauty and sorrow
encountered
were well worth
the price of admission

and had not
the convoluted
path been taken
it never woulda
brought me
here

and i promise
i am fine

for here
is where i belong
if not with you

© copyright 2018 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

in the last of twilight,
by the light of the moon,
tremblin’, i follow her
into the dark corners
whither she gives me
what she will

a sad feelin’ prevails
the melancholy inseparable
from all things about to end
without possibility of return

this splendid summer
also draws to a close

i feel more gloomy
each time another
fades away,
and flies to rejoin
the others already gone,
where all things past
lie buried

“Listen, come back
tomorrow at first light,
to bid one final goodbye;
you will find me still here.”

and i promise

© copyright 2017 mac tag/cowboy Coleridge all rights reserved

“I think you are ruined”
Yes darlin’, for certain

Son of a…
This whole time
I thought I was wavin’
This whole dang time
How was I to know
How the hell…

© copyright 2016 mac tag/cowboy Coleridge all rights reserved

All That Is Left

To kiss her or not to kiss her
That was the question that governed
The days and shadows of the night
Kissin’ her would have changed it all

There would have been no turnin’ back
Never was a kiss more wanted
Never was a kiss more needed
Never was a kiss more deserved

Well, deserve is hard to figure
At last, a price had to be paid
For past lies told and the sold soul

For all of the lines that were blurred

For all of the lives tossed aside
There just would not have been a way
To protect her from the demons
Created by the choices made

Sure had this comin’ a long time
You know what is said ’bout payback
This is not about gettin’ mad
This is ’bout love gettin’ even

So I pay the price ever’ day
Serve my penance in solitude
Reapin’ and pickin’ what I sowed
For what is owed and what was done

All that is left, all I can do
Seekin’ solace in these letters

I write for you, and search my thoughts
For what is left of could have been

© copyright 2013 mac tag/Cowboy Coleridge all rights reserved

The Song of the Day is “All That’s Left” by Wade Bowen.  We do not own the rights to this song.  All rights reserved by the rightful owner.  No copyright infringement intended.

Today is the birthday of Théodore Chassériau (El Limón, Samaná, in the Spanish colony of Santo Domingo (now the Dominican Republic) September 20, 1819 – October 8, 1856 Paris); Romantic painter noted for his portraits, historical and religious paintings, allegorical murals, and Orientalist images inspired by his travels to Algeria. Early in his career he painted in a Neoclassical style close to that of his teacher Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, but in his later works he was strongly influenced by the Romantic style of Eugène Delacroix. He was a prolific draftsman, and made a suite of prints to illustrate Shakespeare’s Othello. The portrait he painted at the age of 15 of Prosper Marilhat, makes Théodore Chassériau the youngest painter exhibited at the Louvre museum.

His work had a significant impact on the style of Puvis de Chavannes and Gustave Moreau, and—through those artists’ influence—reverberations in the work of Paul Gauguin and Henri Matisse.  There is in Paris a Society for the painter: Association des Amis de Théodore Chassériau.

Works of Chassériau are in the Musée du Louvre where a room is dedicated to him, in the Musée d’Orsay, and in the Musée de Versailles. Collections in the United States holding works by Théodore Chassériau include the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the Fogg Art Museum of Harvard University, the National Gallery of Art of Washington, D.C., the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Museum of the Art Rhode Island School of Design, The J. Paul Getty Museum and the Art Institute of Chicago.

Gallery

Stevie Smith
in July 1966, by Jorge (‘J.S.’) Lewinski

And today is the birthday of Stevie Smith (Florence Margaret Smith; Kingston upon Hull, England; 20 September 1902 – 7 March 1971 Ashburton, Devon, England); poet and novelist. She won the Cholmondeley Award and was awarded the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry.

When suffering from the depression to which she was subject all her life, Smith was so consoled by the thought of death as a release that, as she put it, she did not have to commit suicide. She wrote in several poems that death was “the only god who must come when he is called.” Smith suffered throughout her life from an acute nervousness, described as a mix of shyness and intense sensitivity.

Smith was described by her friends as being naive and selfish in some ways and formidably intelligent in others, having been raised by her aunt, whom Smith called “The Lion Aunt”, as both a spoiled child and a resolutely autonomous woman. Likewise, her political views vacillated between her aunt’s Toryism and her friends’ left-wing tendencies. Smith was celibate for most of her life, although she rejected the idea that she was lonely as a result, alleging that she had a number of intimate relationships with friends and family that kept her fulfilled. She never entirely abandoned or accepted the High Church Anglican faith of her childhood, describing herself as a “lapsed atheist”, and wrote sensitively about theological puzzles; “There is a God in whom I do not believe/Yet to this God my love stretches.” Her 14-page essay of 1958, “The Necessity of Not Believing”, concludes: “There is no reason to be sad, as some people are sad when they feel religion slipping off from them. There is no reason to be sad, it is a good thing.” The essay was unveiled at a meeting of the Cambridge Humanist Society.

Smith died of a brain tumour. Her last collection, Scorpion and other Poems was published posthumously in 1972, and the Collected Poems followed in 1975. Three novels were republished and there was a successful play based on her life, Stevie, written by Hugh Whitemore. It was filmed in 1978 by Robert Enders and starred Glenda Jackson and Mona Washbourne.

Verse 

Not Waving but Drowning (1957)

Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he’s dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.

Selected Poems (1962)

• I wish I was more cheerful, it is more pleasant,
  Also it is a duty, we should smile as well as submitting
  To the purpose of One Above who is experimenting
  With various mixtures of human character which goes best,
  All is interesting for him it is exciting, but not for us.
  There I go again. Smile, smile, and get some work to do
  Then you will be practically unconscious without positively having to go.
  • “Thoughts about the Person from Porlock (continued)”

• No man has seen her, this pitiful ghost,
  And no woman either, but heard her at most,
  Sighing and tapping and sighing again,
  You have weaned me too soon, you must nurse me again.
  • “The Wanderer”
• The boat that took my love away
  He sent again to me
  To tell me that he would not sleep
  Alone beneath the sea.
  • “The Boat”
• The flower and fruit of love are mine
  The ant, the fieldmouse and the mole
  • “The Boat”
• Why does my Muse only speak when she is unhappy?
  She does not, I only listen when I am unhappy.
  • “My Muse”

The Best Beast (1966)

• So I fancy my Muse says, when I wish to die,
  Oh no, Oh no, we are not yet friends enough,
  And Virtue also says:
  We are not yet friends enough.
  • “Exeat”

It was a house of female habitation,
Two ladies fair inhabited the house,
And they were brave. For although Fear knocked loud
Upon the door, and said he must come in,
They did not let him in

Mac Tag

thanks for stoppin’ by y’all