The Lovers’ Chronicle 21 September – rover’s adieu – art by Barbara Longhi & Cigoli – death of Sir Walter Scott – birth of Leonard Cohen

Dear Zazie,  Here is today’s Lovers’ Chronicle from Mac Tag dedicated to his muse.  Follow us on twitter @cowboycoleridge.  Mac Tag is right; this is one of my favorite topics.  Are you a rover?  Have you bid adieu to love?  Has love bid adieu to you?  Rhett

The Lovers’ Chronicle

Dear Muse,

now, knowin’ all we do
this should be about
bienvenue
“That’s right and no more roving”
we could have convened
a ceremony to officially
lay the search to rest
“That’s what we’ve been living”
touché, and well i might add
or it goes like this; the only
rovin’ goin’ on is our travels
together and the search
for words to share

© copyright 2023 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

some fine adieu’s were written, thought of, or imagined along the way, an arrival never came without knowin’ leavin’ was inevitable, and drawn to like stories in art and literature, comfort came with company, and for those that want why; i believe rovin’ is a symptom of someone without purpose, found some ephemeral ones but not the one till here, and you

© copyright 2022.2023 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

whoa, gotta throw a rope
around all the biddin’
adieu goin’ on here
time to say
welcome home

rovin’ days in the rearview
from the viewpoint that
the rovin’ was in search
of myself, it only
almost took a lifetime

gettin’ there
takes what it takes
nothin’ but gratitude
that i got there
and that you were here

© copyright 2021.2023 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

Pale Love, Pale Rider

’’You want it darker’’
absolutely Leonard
is there any other way

***

lowerin’ the walls
built to protect

she has grieved
and buried,
wept and wailed

and now, after all,
wave on wave
a muse has emerged
strong, confident
ready to heal,
to survive

to take a chance,
trust her cape

and i, waitin’
extendin’ my hand
to allow myself

© copyright 2020 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

’’You want it darker’’
damn right Leonard
every day

bid adieu about two years ago
and doin’ just fine thank you
the passenger manifesto
indicates only one allowed

have seen and met some
beautiful women here
but c’mon, why would
they or i bother;
beyond me

it would just put a dent
in my time here with you
and that cannot be

© copyright 2019.2023 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

“You Want it Darker”
yes i do Leonard,
yes i do

***

weary for sure
so pour more wine

a lightsome eye,
a poet’s mien
the cloudy blue sky

a doublet
of the lonesome kind

what more of me
shall ye know
in the fadin’
light of day

give the reins a shake,
let yourself
be taken in
ere time slips away

© copyright 2018 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

the first Leonard Cohen song
i heard today, on this birthday;
“You Want It Darker”…
why yes, Leonard, i do

***

an evenin’, so fine
and you, very charmin’
as you silently walk
beside me
through the darkness
of the lane

then the words you whisper,
as you walk beside me,
embellished by the silence
of three o’clock in the mornin’,
and the enchantments of night

how simple it seems
after all,
to allow myself
to be taken in

© copyright 2017 mac tag/cowboy Coleridge all rights reserved

‘’You want it darker’’
hell yes Leonard
is there any other
way to take it

© copyright 2016 mac tag/cowboy Coleridge all rights reserved

Facin’ the darkened horizon, erect
Vaguely lit by the summer moon, nekid
Dreamin’, streaked in pain, as is, never was

© copyright 2015 mac tag/cowboy Coleridge all rights reserved

for Denise

She loved rippin open
His pearlsnap shirt buttons
and runnin’ her hands down
The muscles in his chest
and abs inside his jeans
To the hardness within

© copyright 2014 mac tag/cowboy Coleridge all rights reserved

Today’s topic is rovin’.  One of Rhett’s favorite topics.  He has done his fair share.

Rover’s Adieu

No more of me you know
No more of me you know
The sage will bloom amid winter
Before we meet again,
Turnin’ his horse sayin’,
Adieu, for evermore
Adieu for evermore
She stood alone,
And watched him fade away
She was strong, and so cold,
Standin’ alone
Goodbye, so long, adieu…

© copyright 2012 mac tag/Cowboy Coleridge all rights reserved

Barbara Longhi
Self-portrait as Saint Catherine of Alexandria

Today is the birthday of Barbara Longhi (Ravenna 21 September 1552 – 23 December 1638 Ravenna); painter. She was much admired in her lifetime as a portraitist, although most of her portraits are now lost or unattributed. Her work, such as her many Madonna and Child paintings, earned her a fine reputation as an artist.  
Longhi is one of the few female artists mentioned in the second edition (1568) of Italian painter and art historian Giorgio Vasari’s epic work Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects. Vasari writes that Longhi “draws very well, and she has begun to colour some things with good grace and manner”. But as Germaine Greer discussed in her The Obstacle Race: The Fortunes of Women Painters and Their Work, such “haphazard” selections of women artists including Longhi rarely offered “serious criticism of their achievement.” Greer then offered her own assessment: “Barbara’s output was considerable, all small pictures, remarkable for their purity of line and soft brilliance of colour” and “Barbara Longhi brings to her extremely conservative picture-making a simplicity and intensity of feeling quite beyond her mannerist father and her dilettante brother.”

Gallery

Today is the birthday of Lodovico Cardi (21 September 1559 – 8 June 1613), also known as Cigoli; painter and architect of the late Mannerist and early Baroque period, trained and active in his early career in Florence, and spending the last nine years of his life in Rome.

self-portrait

Cigoli, a friend of Galileo Galilei – and regarded by him as the greatest painter of the age – painted a last fresco in the dome of the Pauline chapel of the church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, depicting the Madonna standing upon a pock-marked lunar orb. This is the first extant example of Galileo’s discoveries about the physical nature of the Moon (as he himself drew it in his 1610 treatise Sidereus Nuncius) having penetrated the visual arts practice of his day. Until this image, the Moon in pictures of the Virgin had always been mythical and smooth, perfectly spherical as described by Platonic & Ptolemaic tradition.

Gallery

On this day in 1832, the great Scottish novelist, playwright and poet, Sir Walter Scott died in Scotland.  His most famous poem is probably “The Lady of the Lake” but for our Poem of the Day I chose this one:

The Rover’s Adieu

Weary lot is thine, fair maid,
A weary lot is thine!
To pull the thorn thy brow to braid,
And press the rue for wine.
A lightsome eye, a soldier’s mien,
A feather of the blue,
A doublet of the Lincoln green—
No more of me ye knew,
My Love!
No more of me ye knew.
‘This morn is merry June, I trow,
The rose is budding fain;
But she shall bloom in winter snow
Ere we two meet again.’
—He turn’d his charger as he spake
Upon the river shore,
He gave the bridle-reins a shake,
Said ‘Adieu for evermore,
My Love!
And adieu for evermore.’

And today is the birthday of Leonard Cohen (Leonard Norman Cohen; Westmount, Quebec, Canada; September 21, 1934 – November 7, 2016 Los Angeles); singer-songwriter, poet and novelist. His work explored religion, politics, isolation, depression, sexuality, loss, death, and romantic relationships.  He was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He was invested as a Companion of the Order of Canada, the nation’s highest civilian honour. In 2011, he received one of the Prince of Asturias Awards for literature and the ninth Glenn Gould Prize.

Cohen pursued a career as a poet and novelist during the 1950s and early 1960s, and did not begin a music career until 1967. His first album, Songs of Leonard Cohen (1967), was followed by three more albums of folk music: Songs from a Room (1969), Songs of Love and Hate (1971) and New Skin for the Old Ceremony (1974). His 1977 record Death of a Ladies’ Man, co-written and produced by Phil Spector, was a move away from Cohen’s previous minimalist sound.

In 1979, Cohen returned with the more traditional Recent Songs, which blended his acoustic style with jazz, East Asian, and Mediterranean influences. Cohen’s song, “Hallelujah”, was released on his seventh album, Various Positions (1984). I’m Your Man in 1988 marked Cohen’s turn to synthesized productions. In 1992, Cohen released its follow-up, The Future, which had dark lyrics and references to political and social unrest.

Cohen returned to music in 2001 with the release of Ten New Songs, a major hit in Canada and Europe. His 11th album, Dear Heather, followed in 2004. In 2005, Cohen discovered that his manager had stolen most of his money and sold his publishing rights, prompting a return to touring to recoup his losses. Following a successful string of tours between 2008 and 2013, he released three albums in the final years of his life: Old Ideas (2012), Popular Problems (2014), and You Want It Darker (2016), the last of which was released three weeks before his death. A posthumous album, Thanks for the Dance, was released in November 2019, his fifteenth and final studio album.

Lyrics

Suzanne takes you down to her place near the river.
You can hear the boats go by,
You can spend the night beside her,
And you know that she’s half crazy
But that’s why you want to be there,
And she feeds you tea and oranges
That come all the way from China.
And just when you mean to tell her
That you have no love to give her
Then she gets you on her wavelength
And she lets the river answer
That you’ve always been her lover.
And you want to travel with her,
And you want to travel blind,
And you know that she will trust you,
For you’ve touched her perfect body with your mind.

“Suzanne”

And she shows you where to look
Among the garbage and the flowers.
There are heroes in the seaweed,
There are children in the morning,
They are leaning out for love,
And they will lean that way forever,
While Suzanne holds the mirror.

“Suzanne”

And Jesus was a sailor
When he walked upon the water
And he spent a long time watching
From his lonely wooden tower
And when he knew for certain
Only drowning men could see him
He said “All men will be sailors then
Until the sea shall free them”
But he himself was broken
Long before the sky would open
Forsaken, almost human
He sank beneath your wisdom like a stone

“Suzanne”

I’m Your Man (1988)

• They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
  For trying to change the system from within 
  I’m coming now, I’m coming to reward them 
  First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin.
  • “First We Take Manhattan” (written in 1986)
• I’m guided by a signal in the heavens
  I’m guided by this birthmark on my skin 
  I’m guided by the beauty of our weapons
  First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin.
  • “First We Take Manhattan”
• Ah, you loved me as a loser, but now you’re worried that I just might win
  You know the way to stop me, but you don’t have the discipline 
  How many nights I prayed for this, to let my work begin 
  First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin.
  • “First We Take Manhattan” (1986)
• Everybody knows that the dice are loaded 
  Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed 
  Everybody knows that the war is over 
  Everybody knows the good guys lost 
  Everybody knows the fight was fixed 
  The poor stay poor, the rich get rich 
  That’s how it goes 
  Everybody knows.
  • “Everybody Knows” (co-written with Sharon Robinson)
• Everybody knows that you love me baby 
  Everybody knows that you really do 
  Everybody knows that you’ve been faithful 
  Ah give or take a night or two 
  Everybody knows you’ve been discreet 
  But there were so many people you just had to meet 
  without your clothes 
  And everybody knows
  • “Everybody Knows”
• Everybody knows that the boat is leaking.
  Everybody knows that the captain lied…
  And everybody knows that you’re in trouble…
  Everybody knows it’s coming apart.
  Take one last look…Before it blows.
  Everybody knows
  • “Everybody Knows” Leonard Cohen and collaborator Sharon Robinson.
• If you want a lover 
  I’ll do anything you ask me to. 
  And if you want another kind of love 
  I’ll wear a mask for you.
  • “I’m Your Man”
• Here I stand, I’m your man.
  • “I’m Your Man”

• Ring the bells that still can ring.
  Forget your perfect offering.
  There is a crack in everything.
  That’s how the light gets in.
  • “Anthem”
• Every heart to love will come 
  But like a refugee.
  • “Anthem”

You Want It Darker (2016)

• If you are the dealer, I’m out of the game 
  If you are the healer, it means I’m broken and lame 
  If thine is the glory then mine must be the shame
  You want it darker
  We kill the flame Magnified, sanctified, be thy holy name
  Vilified, crucified, in the human frame 
  A million candles burning for the help that never came 
  You want it darker
• Hineni, hineni 
  I’m ready, my Lord
  • “You Want It Darker”
• They’re lining up the prisoners 
  And the guards are taking aim 
  I struggled with some demons 
  They were middle-class and tame 
  I didn’t know I had permission to murder and to maim.
  • “You Want It Darker”

The Song of the Day is “Adieu” by Emily Bindiger.

The bonus SOD is “The Rover“ by Led Zeppelin if you prefer to rock out! 

Mac Tag

thanks for stoppin’ by y’all