The Lovers’ Chronicle 31 May – a poet’s heartbreak (II) – verse by Walt Whitman – art by Walter Sickert

31 May 2023 By Rhett 0 In Love, Poems, Songs

Dear Zazie, Here is today’s Lovers’ Chronicle from Mac Tag. How does your heart break? Rhett

The Lovers’ Chronicle

Dear Muse,

inspired by Wilde’s
“Roses and Rue”
“Sadly, no stranger
to heartbreak”
here is a view
on the matter
i have not taken
“Oh do tell”
for the poet,
heartbreak does not come
in loss, it comes in silence
loss is the lifeblood of poetry
silence, the death, for if the poet
no longer hears the music,
that is true heartbreak
“And what do you hear my love”
i hear oceans of symphonies
and i will write them for you

sometimes,
if not often,
i get caught up
in how the words
sound when wound
together and i lose
all sense of meanin’

or i find as i dance
around sayin’ what i want
without sayin’ it, i end up
in an abstract ’l’ embrassade’
from which i cannot escape

to you, for wadin’ through
all of it, the heartbreak,
the sensical and not,
for you bein’ you,
i am most thankful

if you have been

followin’ along

you know well

how a poet’s

heart breaks

but of late,

have you noticed,

this is how

it comes together

your touch

your words,

your affirmation

of all that i have

written, hoped

and dreamed

this soi-disant poet’s

heart mends so

a bit too untranslatable,

i get it, but i know not

another way, so i keep on

soundin’ my verse over

time passin’ by

weep not, my darlin’,

with these words

let me remove your tears

somewhere between

said and unsaid

hear the passionate past

reachin’ out too late to heal

write
what you think
what you believe
what you dream

it is the only way

long enough were you there,
now no more in your eyes
we must attune ourselves
to the moments that matter

too long have we waited
now i will to you and you to i

be bold that by us
swear, never again

could we get back
what was lost
could we learn again
after all this time
at what price

were it possible,
could the past
be brought back
were it worth the pain

i often recall
the places
the way you looked

memories rushin’ back…
dancin’ naked
in the high
hill country rain

sensual overload
smell of rain
feel of wet skin

and later that night
the way you looked
and the way we were

then another day
in the rain
a hand as it waved adieu
and eyes as they searched

a crime, selfish
so much wasted time

could we get back
what we had,
at what cost,
could the past
call back

or, after all,
does broken
become too much,
or just a crutch

first light
the exchange
of a knowin’ look
well written verse

this place called the High Plains
thoughts for which the right language
has not been found and moonlight of course

a long anticipated touch
the sun in your hair
the sound of your name
a mutual sigh

somewhere between the said and the unsaid

Pale Love, Pale Rider

Another from the Dark Muse. I have given up on fightin’ her and now welcome her into my life. Each night as I go to sleep I ask her to come and give me words. So far, she is respondin’, perhaps too good. I have many draft poems inspired by her. Just have to find the time to finish ’em. Today’s Poem of the Day was inspired by Oscar Wilde’s “Roses and Rue”.

After all this time, a poet first and last. After all that has happened; a poet still. This to cling to. Live like a poet, love like a poet, fight like a warrior poet. And when love leaves, this is a……

Poet’s Heartbreak

Could we get back what was lost
At what price
Could we learn love’s tune again
After all this time

Were it possible,
Could the passionate
past possibly be brought back
Were it worth the pain

I often recall the fun we had
The places we went
The way you looked when
You smiled, the sound of your laugh

And your eyes, so bright
So easy to get lost in
And welcomed they did
When I leaned and kissed

And your mouth, your lips
would smile and beguile
and spread all over
Capturin’ my heart anew

More memories rushin’ back:
That fine late spring day
When we ran and danced naked
in the high hill country rain

A sensual overload;
Smell of rain – Feel of wet skin
You looked wonderful
And I watched full of wonder

Your hair all gleamin’
Streamin’ in the rain
That day that was ours
When we asked the world to wait

And later that night
When our passion came abloom
Our bodies movin’ in rhyme
and rhythm and rhapsody

And your eyes, the way they looked
When we reached that place
Where rapture and flesh entwine
And love never ends

But then came that day
Standin’ in the pourin’ rain
Was is it rain or tears
Streamin’ down your face

Your hand as it waved adieu;
Your eyes as they searched;
Your voice as it said good-bye;
A cry, petulant therein –

“Your crime, dreadful and selfish
You have but wasted your time.”
Then I rushed through the gate, but
It was all too late.

Could we get back what we had,
At what cost,
Could the passionate past call
Back its dead!

So, a broken heart
Broken for loves sake,
Broken in rhythm and rhyme
Poets’ hearts break so.

Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman, 1887

Today is the birthday of Walter “Walt” Whitman (West Hills, Huntington, Long Island, New York; May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892 Camden, New Jersey); poet, essayist, and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse. His work was very controversial in its time, particularly his poetry collection Leaves of Grass, which was described as obscene for its overt sexuality. Leaves of Grass, was first published in 1855 with his own money. The work was an attempt at reaching out to the common person with an American epic. He continued expanding and revising it until his death in 1892. When he died at age 72, his funeral became a public spectacle. He described himself in Leaves of Grass; “Walt Whitman, an American, one of the roughs, a kosmos, disorderly, fleshly, and sensual, no sentimentalist, no stander above men or women apart from them, no more modest than immodest.”

Peter Doyle may be the most likely candidate for the love of Whitman’s life. Doyle was a bus conductor whom Whitman met around 1866, and the two were inseparable for several years. Interviewed in 1895, Doyle said: “We were familiar at once—I put my hand on his knee—we understood. He did not get out at the end of the trip—in fact went all the way back with me.” In his notebooks, Whitman disguised Doyle’s initials using the code “16.4” (P.D. being the 16th and 4th letters of the alphabet). Oscar Wilde met Whitman in the United States in 1882 and told the homosexual-rights activist George Cecil Ives that Whitman’s sexual orientation was beyond question—”I have the kiss of Walt Whitman still on my lips.”

Another possible lover was Bill Duckett. As a teenager, he lived on the same street in Camden and moved in with Whitman, living with him a number of years and serving him in various roles.

There is also some evidence that Whitman had sexual relationships with women. He had a romantic friendship with a New York actress, Ellen Grey, in the spring of 1862, but it is not known whether it was also sexual. He still had a photograph of her decades later, when he moved to Camden, and he called her “an old sweetheart of mine”. In a letter, dated August 21, 1890, he claimed, “I have had six children—two are dead”. This claim has never been corroborated. Toward the end of his life, he often told stories of previous girlfriends and sweethearts and denied an allegation from the New York Herald that he had “never had a love affair”. As Whitman biographer Jerome Loving wrote, “the discussion of Whitman’s sexual orientation will probably continue in spite of whatever evidence emerges.

Excerpts from Leaves of Grass

Long enough have you dream’d contemptible dreams,
Now I wash the gum from your eyes,
You must habit yourself to the dazzle of the light and of every moment of your life. (46)

Long have you timidly waded holding a plank by the shore,
Now I will you to be a bold swimmer…

I am the teacher of athletes,
He that by me spreads a wider breast than my own proves the width of my own,
He most honors my style who learns under it to destroy the teacher. (47)

I teach straying from me, yet who can stray from me?
I follow you whoever you are from the present hour,
My words itch at your ears till you understand them.

It is you talking just as much as myself, I act as the tongue of you,
Tied in your mouth, in mine it begins to be loosen’d. (47)

I swear I will never again mention love or death inside a house,
And I swear I will never translate myself at all, only to him or her who privately stays with me in the open air.
If you would understand me go to the heights or water-shore

And as to you Death, and you bitter hug of mortality, it is idle to try to alarm me. (49)

There is that in me — I do not know what it is — but I know it is in me.
…
I do not know it — it is without name — it is a word unsaid,
It is not in any dictionary, utterance, symbol.
Something it swings on more than the earth I swing on,
To it the creation is the friend whose embracing awakes me. (50)

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.) (51)

I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.

Weep not, child,
Weep not, my darling,
With these kisses let me remove your tears,
The ravening clouds shall not long be victorious,
They shall not long possess the sky, they devour the stars only in apparition,
Jupiter shall emerge, be patient, watch again another night, the Pleiades shall emerge,
They are immortal…

Walter Sickert, photograph by George Charles Beresford, 1911

And today is the birthday of Walter Richard Sickert (Munich 31 May 1860 – 22 January 1942 Bath, Somerset); painter and printmaker who was a member of the Camden Town Group in London. He was an important influence on distinctively British styles of avant-garde art in the 20th century. Sickert was a cosmopolitan and eccentric who often favoured ordinary people and urban scenes as his subjects. His oeuvre also included portraits of well-known personalities and images derived from press photographs. He is considered a prominent figure in the transition from Impressionism to Modernism. Decades after his death, several researchers and theorists suspected Sickert to have been the London-based serial killer Jack the Ripper, although the theory has largely been dismissed.

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