The Lovers’ Chronicle 15 December – El Pacifico – art by David Teniers the Younger – verse by Muriel Rukeyser

Dear Zazie, Here is today’s Lovers’ Chronicle from Mac Tag dedicated to his muse. Rhett

The Lovers’ Chronicle

Dear Muse,

this one comes from somethin’ i read
about a sayin’ down in Mexico;
El Pacifico no tiene memoria
so we could go with memory
in findin’ a song, the best maybe
Merle Haggard’s “My Favorite Memory”;
“There’s a million good daydreams to dream on
But baby, you are my favorite memory of all”
“He could tap his inner poet when inspired”
i have many of his songs memorized
and baby, you are my favorite (fill in the blank)

Muriel got it right when she said the universe is made of stories, not atoms, this vision is, today for example, another perhaps; i was there in winter, solo of course, i walked down to the beach, stood facin’ the warm settin’ sun and tried to imagine holdin’ someone close, would not have believed if told it would happen, on a different ocean not el Pacifico, but it did

part of the draw, the attraction
where and when do not matter
hop in the car, board that plane,
step on a train, by boat or rv,
as together, the destination
or the mode, just details
well planned or a moments spur
we can be awash in our feelin’s
waves of pleasure from
el Atlántico to el Pacifico

Pale Love, Pale Rider

creatin’ these stories,
this verse, for myself
for you unkown till now

i would imagine findin’ you,
makin’ love to you, tryin’
by any means to reach
the limits of ourselves,
to let go the means, to wake

how shall we get there
how shall we tell each other

i god we are connected

an even longer road trip from here,
epic even by my standards,
about two thousand miles
to Bahía de Banderas
but to be in those waters again
to watch the sunset on the sea
would you accompany me
we would listen to great music
we could search the best places to eat
find the coolest hotels along the way
el Pacifico calls, can you hear it

Pale Love, Pale Rider

random musin’s…

memoria, hablando
a través de memorias

is that not the meanin’
is that not the purpose,
conscious or not,
of this compulsive need

a far piece from here
not sure the most direct route,
drivin’ of course, you know
how we love to road trip,
about fourteen hundred miles
to Long Beach, where, true story,
one of my great grandmothers lived
her husband, EH moved from New York
to the High Plains first, then sent for her
she arrived and promptly said, nope,
and took the train to California
cannot blame her, have always said
only us natives can love the High Plains
and who can deny the pull
of el Pacifico
actually, watchin’ the sunset
on the water sounds nice right now
when can you be ready to depart

El Pacifico

down south of the border
they have a sayin’…
El Pacifico
no tiene memoria

to be awash again
in that perfect water
washin’ away
these memories…

tell her i miss everything
when you see her, tell her…

if you came to me
would you say you knew
me, that you had known
me always, would you…

shadows cast upon
an adobe wall…

Nope.
Never have
Did a helluva job,
pretendin’; but
I never did
Never will.
But, damn those eyes
They haunt me

Dakotas
Winter
Silent song
A bend in a river
Nights
Gonna git cold
Stars
Signs
Endless patterns
Above canyons
Time
Weaves
Closer

Stars
Signs in endless patterns
Above canyons and prairies
And miles of wide open spaces
Time weaves closer and closer

Winter
What is comin’: known
Listen to some silent song
Atop a mesa, on the Great Plains
Time weaves closer and closer

And there before
You a pale horse
Its rider is
Named Solo, and
Heartbreak follows
Close behind him

Today is the birthday of David Teniers the Younger or David Teniers II (Antwerp 15 December 1610 – 25 April 1690 Brussels); painter, printmaker, draughtsman, miniaturist painter, staffagepainter, copyist and art curator. He was an innovator in a wide range of genres such as history, genre, landscape, portrait and still life. Perhaps best remembered as the leading Flemish genre painter of his day. Teniers is particularly known for developing the peasant genre, the tavern scene, pictures of collections and scenes with alchemists and physicians.

Portrait of David Teniers by Philip Fruytiers, 1655 Portrait by Philip Fruytiers, 1655

He was court painter and the curator of the collection of Archduke Leopold Wilhelm, the art loving Governor General of the Habsburg Netherlands. He created a printed catalogue of the collections of the Archduke. He was the founder of the Antwerp Academy, where young artists were trained to draw and sculpt in the hope of reviving Flemish art after its decline following the death of the leading Flemish artists Rubens and Anthony van Dyck in the early 1640s.

Teniers married into the famous Brueghel artist family when Anna Brueghel, daughter of Jan Brueghel the Elder, became his wife on 22 July 1637. Rubens, who had been the guardian of Anna Brueghel after her father’s death, was a witness at the wedding. Through his marriage Teniers was able to cement a close relationship with Rubens who had been a good friend and frequent collaborator with his wife’s father.

Teniers’ wife died on 11 May 1656. On 21 October of the same year the artist remarried. His second wife was Isabella de Fren. It has been suggested that Teniers’ main motive for marrying the ‘spinster’ was her rather elevated position in society. His second wife also brought him a large dowry. The couple had four children, two sons and two boys. Teniers petitioned the king of Spain to be admitted to the aristocracy but gave up when the condition imposed was that he should give up painting for money.

Gallery

Adam and eve

Danae or Aegina after Titian

scene in a tavern

duet

Judith with the head of holofernes

A family concert on the terrace of a country house: a self-portrait of the artist with his family, between 1640-49; oil on canvas

Archduke Leopold Wilhelm in his gallery in Brussels, c. 1647-51; oil on copper-plate

Archduke Leopold Wilhelm in his gallery in Brussels, 1650-52; oil on canvas

A picture gallery with two men examining a seal and a red chalk drawing, and a monkey present, oil on panel

And today is the birthday of Muriel Rukeyser (New York City; December 15, 1913 – February 12, 1980 New York City); poet and political activist, best known for her poems about equality, feminism, social justice, and Judaism. Kenneth Rexroth said that she was the greatest poet of her “exact generation”.

In 1936 she had traveled to Spain to cover the People’s Olympiad for the literary journal Life and Letters. The Spanish Civil War broke out and during her five-day stay, she fell in love with Otto Boch, a German communist athlete who volunteered to fight the fascists, and who was later killed. That experience was evoked in “To be a Jew in the Twentieth Century.” Also, her literary agent Monica McCall was her partner for decades.

Verse

The Speed of Darkness (1968)

The Universe is made of stories, not of atoms.
I lived in the first century of world wars.
Most mornings I would be more or less insane.
- “Poem”
Slowly I would get to pen and paper,
Make my poems for others unseen and unborn.
In the day I would be reminded of those men and women,
Brave, setting up signals across vast distances,
considering a nameless way of living, of almost unimagined values.
- “Poem”
We would try to imagine them, try to find each other,
To construct peace, to make love, to reconcile
Waking with sleeping, ourselves with each other,
Ourselves with ourselves. We would try by any means
To reach the limits of ourselves, to reach beyond ourselves,
To let go the means, to wake.
- “Poem” — these lines are among those quoted on the The Pacifist Memorial

The Gates (1976)

How shall we venture home?
How shall we tell each other of the poet?
How can we meet the judgment on the poet,
or his execution? How shall we free him?
How shall we speak to the infant beginning to run?
All those beginning to run?
- “The Gates”
O for God’s sake
they are connected
underneath.
- “Islands”

Mac Tag

thanks for stoppin’ by y’all