The Lovers’ Chronicle 7 July – covenant – art by Félicien Rops

07 July 2023 By Rhett 0 In Love, Poems, Quotes, Random

Dear Zazie, Here is today’s Lovers’ Chronicle from Mac Tag to his muse. Visit us on twitter @cowboycoleridge. Take good care of yourself Z. Still, Rhett

The Lovers’ Chronicle

Dear Muse,

you give me

movin’, workin’, makin’

dreams to run toward

the sheer buildup

comes from bein’ apart

i held your hand

and we allowed,

to hold each other

close, this covenant

only we can make

entered in hope

late at night

in the cloud,

that place we created

that holds all else at bay

“I suppose, I am most
surprised that you can
leave yourself so open.
Why do you do it?”

to be
to feel again

-a mattress, on the floor,
our silhouettes, movin’
across the wall,
a tango towards
the sheer buildup
of need that comes-

where you fear to enter,
holds what you seek

Copyright 2018 Mac tag/cowboy Coleridge all rights reserved

no call to look
for the writin’
it is in the verse
the great risk
is that i have
but one need

y’all know
i do not believe
in usin’ “like” in verse

love is like this,
or a kiss is like that…
no
they are what they are
and unlike anything

but while cruisin’
through the High Plains
on a recent road trip
i discovered a “like”
i can live with

my needs
are like the trees
on the High Plains
few and far between

and these trees,
unlike the grass,
will not grow back
after a wild fire

much like needs,
once burned
never to return

I borrowed heavily for this one from Tennessee Williams‘ poem Covenant.

The Covenant

You were cold, I gave you warmth
You were anxious, I held your hand
And you allowed me, to hold you
Close to my heart and I did you no harm

I was cold, you gave me warmth
I was anxious, you held my hand
And as you liked, you held me
Close to your heart and did me no harm

This was the bargain, only lovers can make
This was the covenant, entered in desperate hope
Late at night in that place we created
But the demons could not be held at bay

Detail from The Members of the
Société Libre des Beaux-Arts
by Edmond Lambrichs

Today is the birthday of Félicien Rops (Namur 7 July 1833 – 23 August 1898 Essonnes, France); artist, known primarily as a printmaker in etching and aquatint. Rops met Charles Baudelaire towards the end of the poet’s life in 1864. Rops created the frontispiece for Baudelaire’s Les Épaves, a selection of poems from Les Fleurs du mal that had been censored in France, and which therefore were published in Belgium. His association with Baudelaire and with the art he represented won his work the admiration of many other writers, including Théophile Gautier, Alfred de Musset, Stéphane Mallarmé, Jules Barbey d’Aurevilly, and Joséphin Péladan. He was closely associated with the literary movement of Symbolism and Decadence. Like the works of the authors whose poetry he illustrated, his work tends to mingle sex, death, and Satanic images. According to Edith Hoffmann, the “erotic or frankly pornographic” nature of much of Rops’s work “is at least partly due to the attraction these subjects had for a provincial artist who never forgot his first impressions of Paris”.

In 1857, he married Charlotte Polet de Faveaux. After the failure of his marriage, Rops moved to Paris in 1874 where he lived with two sisters, Aurélie and Léontine Duluc.