The Lovers’ Chronicle 14 November – random reveries – art by Claude Monet

Dear Zazie, Here is today’s Lovers’ Chronicle from Mac Tag dedicated to his muse. What favorite reveries do you return to again and again? Rhett

The Lovers’ Chronicle

Dear Muse,

every day could have this theme
“Spent a lot of time there baby”
in the land of reveries
i had a standin’ reservation
“You walked through the door…”
and they all shouted my name
not gonna carry on a worn out story
but for years only found respite there
“No longer my dear”
right, now the reveries, random or not,
are a nice accompaniment to our journey

we got this covered; could begin bathed in the light of a Monet like sunrise or sunset, perhaps sittin’ with my arm around you on a bench in Jackson Square, maybe toastin’ each other with cocktails at Antoine’s, what about just any ol’ average day, random reveries with you always welcome

or disparate dreams, that could be, perhaps
a dark cocktail lounge, intimate conversation
loungin’ in the shade on a tropical beach
a long train ride, someplace never been before
strollin’ through Monet’s garden in Giverny
a long mornin’ in bed with great room service
to be continued, random reveries with you

Pale Love, Pale Rider

ah yes, this moment
in time, where we
converge, in somethin’
we have not had before

discovery comes
when least expected
sure passion was there
but then, who saw this comin’
these feelin’s leadin’ deeper
than either of us have been

together, a pirourette
towards where we belong

return
where one ends
another begins
who is dreamin’ who

beauty, shadows
ardent eyes will see,
however, different,
you are like this

this must be limbo,
at first, and as sacred,
we touch, in rhythm
and also in madness

it can make us whole
write the right words

some barely touch it
but it surely touches them

beautiful, my friend
every day i discover
even more
it is intoxicatin’
i want to paint it all,
write it all
burstin’ with ideas

i start to see and understand
it seems just ahead i perceive
us

this is what we should be
workin’ on, continuously…

you cannot go there
“It will die if we don’t!”
it is dead already

beauty and sorrow
sorrow and beauty
I grapple with thee…

return and return again, where one ends
another begins; who is dreamin’ who

if one is ardent, the eyes will see
all that can be stretchin’ out
however, different, you like this
the opposite of love’s indifference
at first, and as sacred, we touch

two made whole, a touch
and tenderness did the rest
it means that we can dance,
that we can finally stop searchin’
none too soon in us, we found
for our journey, bodies of mortals
and souls paid for in weights of old

“How many more
shades darker
will you have it?”

many, many…

’bout to git darker
up in here y’all
tune in tomorrow

Ever dance with madness
In the pale super-moonlight
Cry havoc! And let the dance begin

lieta di vivere, la luna e le stelle mi sorridono ...
happy to live, the moon and the stars smile at me ...
well not happy, but you know

© copyright 2014 mac tag/cowboy Coleridge all rights reserved

Today a poem, on our favorite topic, and a song, for you. The Poem of the Day was inspired by readin’ some classic Italian literature. It really is random and bounces around so I hope you can follow my randomness and I hope you like it.

Random Reveries

Return and return again, where one ends
Another begins; who is dreamin’ who
The beauty and Her dark shadows
If one is ardent, the eyes will see,
Loveliness stretched out sensuously
However, different, you like this
It seems that this must be Limbo
At first, and as sacred, we touch,
In rhyme and rhythm and rhapsody
That would go to infinity,
And also in passionate madness
But I say, well, she made me whole
Her touch and tenderness did the rest,
That hot-blooded flesh an invitation
It means that you can dance again,
It is necessary for la bella vita,
And faith, and removin’ doubt
Not so soon in me, she looked,
That adage is one can hardly see,
She left rather than renounce love
When the cold wind blows,
You do not always write the right words

Time vows Her vengeance
To be blunt, bold and liberal
Over the course of many nights
So then let loose those two sinners
Me, and Mal, that Time gave us,
For our journey, bodies of mortals
And souls paid for in weights of old
Because a heart that has little standin’,
Will die soon, if not tenderly treasured
Oh lucky you, that truth and Time,
With scythe and scales in Her hand,
Sends you back out of the vastness
Beautiful face and fervent feelin’s
That thirst only the adventurous
These reveries swirl in and out,
The mortal enemies of madness
Thus it is to constantly seek sanity,
As the totem continues to spin

The Song of the Day is “Rêverie” by Claude Debussy

Today is the birthday of Claude Monet (Oscar-Claude Monet; Paris; 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926 Giverny); founder of French Impressionist painting, and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement’s philosophy of expressing one’s perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein-air landscape painting. The term “Impressionism” is derived from the title of his painting Impression, soleil levant (Impression, Sunrise), which was exhibited in 1874 in the first of the independent exhibitions mounted by Monet and his associates as an alternative to the Salon de Paris. Monet’s ambition of documenting the French countryside led him to adopt a method of painting the same scene many times in order to capture the changing of light and the passing of the seasons. From 1883 Monet lived in Giverny, where he purchased a house and property, and began a vast landscaping project which included lily ponds that would become the subjects of his best-known works. In 1899 he began painting the water lilies, first in vertical views with a Japanese bridge as a central feature, and later in the series of large-scale paintings that was to occupy him continuously for the next 20 years of his life.

In January 1865 Monet painted Camille or The Woman in the Green Dress (La femme à la robe verte), one of many works using his future wife, Camille Doncieux, as his model. The following year Monet used Camille for his model in Women in the Garden, and On the Bank of the Seine, Bennecourt in 1868. Camille became pregnant 1867. Monet and Camille married on 28 June 1870, just before the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War, and, after their excursion to London and Zaandam, they moved to Argenteuil, in December 1871. He and Camille lived in poverty for most of this period.

In 1876, Camille became ill with tuberculosis. In the summer of that year, the family moved to the village of Vétheuil where they shared a house with the family of Ernest Hoschedé, a wealthy department store owner and patron of the arts. In 1878, Camille Monet was diagnosed with uterine cancer, and she died on 5 September 1879 at the age of thirty-two.

Monet made a study in oils of his dead wife. Many years later, Monet confessed to his friend Georges Clemenceau that his need to analyse colours was both the joy and torment of his life.

While Monet continued to live in the house in Vétheuil, Alice Hoschedé helped Monet to raise his two sons, Jean and Michel. She took them to Paris to live alongside her own six children. In the spring of 1880, Alice Hoschedé and all the children left Paris and rejoined Monet at Vétheuil. In 1881, all of them moved to Poissy. In April 1883, looking out the window of the little train between Vernon and Gasny, he discovered Giverny in Normandy. Monet, Alice Hoschedé and the children moved to Vernon, then to the house in Giverny. Following the death of her estranged husband, Monet married Alice Hoschedé in 1892.

Monet died of lung cancer at the age of 86 and is buried in the Giverny church cemetery. Monet had insisted that the occasion be simple; thus only about fifty people attended the ceremony.

His home, garden, and waterlily pond were bequeathed by his son Michel, his only heir, to the French Academy of Fine Arts (part of the Institut de France) in 1966. Through the Fondation Claude Monet, the house and gardens were opened for visits in 1980, following restoration. In addition to souvenirs of Monet and other objects of his life, the house contains his collection of Japanese woodcut prints. The house and garden, along with the Museum of Impressionism, are major attractions in Giverny, which hosts tourists from all over the world.