Dear Zazie, Here is today’s Lovers’ Chronicle from Mac Tag to his muse. Check us out on Twitter @cowboycoleridge. I hope Mac Tag keeps up the love song of the day. I like it. I also like New Orleans. I have spent some time there with some beautiful women. Somethin’ about those Southern Belles. And I love the Walt Whitman quote below. Rhett
The Lover’s Chronicle
Dear Muse,
yes, heard my name called
s’pose this is how this started
though it had to wait
many years
for a response
i ignored it, denied it
stuffed it in the closet
threw it over the fence
buried it in the backyard
locked it in the basement
even tossed it in the ocean
but it always
found a way back
then one day
when i finally
found solitude
i sat down to respond
and i am still respondin’
© copyright 2022.2023 mac tag/cowboycoleridge all rights reserved
i now think it had to be this way,
for else it could not be that this,
would have ever happened
one i adore,
came and cast away
all that needed to be
in verse, subtle or not so,
cast the first shadows
of what was comin’
an intimacy grown together,
a look to communicate feelin’s
this vision, drawin’ us closer
we belong nowhere else
an intimacy grown together, no longer
needin’ more than a look to communicate
feelin’s to each other, this vision, drawin’
me back whenever whatever removes me,
each time i have felt a loss, i return herei belong nowhere else
i now think it had to be this way,
for else it could not be
that this,
would have ever happened
whom i adore,
should come
and cast behind
in verse of as subtle,
as hath the first
that sits in shadows
rest, no more dreams
tonight, i will see to it
© copyright 2019 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved
an understandin’
an intimacy
grown together,
no longer needin’
more than a glance
to communicate
feelin’s to each other
this draws me back
whenever whatever
tries to remove me
the only way i can feel
somewhere close to profound,
when i return to this, to you
more and more, only seem
to belong here with you
© copyright 2018 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved
| “Wild Bill” Hickok | |
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Today is the birthday of “Wild Bill” Hickok (born James Butler Hickok, Troy Grove, Illinois May 27, 1837 – August 2, 1876 Deadwood, South Dakota); folk character of the American Old West known for his skills as a scout, lawman, marksman, actor, gunfighter and gambler. Some contemporary reports of his exploits are known to be fiction, but along with his own stories are the basis for much of his fame and reputation. He went west at age 18 as a fugitive from justice, first working as a stagecoach driver, then as a lawman in the frontier territories of Kansas and Nebraska. He fought for the Union Army during the American Civil War. Hickok was involved in several notable shootouts. He was shot from behind and killed while playing poker in a saloon in Deadwood, Dakota Territory (now South Dakota) by an unsuccessful gambler, Jack McCall. The hand of cards which he supposedly held at the time of his death (black aces and eights) has become known as the “Dead Man’s Hand”.
On March 5, 1876, Hickok married Agnes Thatcher Lake, a 50-year-old circus proprietor in Cheyenne, Wyoming Territory. Hickok left his new bride a few months later, joining Charlie Utter’s wagon train to seek his fortune in the gold fields of South Dakota. Martha Jane Cannary, known popularly as Calamity Jane, claimed in her autobiography that she was married to Hickok and had divorced him so he could be free to marry Agnes Lake, but no records have been found that support Jane’s account. The two were believed to have met for the first time after Jane was released from the guardhouse in Fort Laramie and joined the wagon train in which Hickok was traveling. The wagon train arrived in Deadwood in July, 1876. Jane herself confirmed this account in an 1896 newspaper interview, although she claimed she had been hospitalized with illness rather than in the guardhouse. Shortly before Hickok’s death, he wrote a letter to his new wife, which read in part, “Agnes Darling, if such should be we never meet again, while firing my last shot, I will gently breathe the name of my wife—Agnes—and with wishes even for my enemies I will make the plunge and try to swim to the other shore.”
Today is the birthday of Georges Rouault (Georges Henri Rouault; Paris 27 May 1871 – 13 February 1958 Paris); painter, draughtsman, and printer, whose work is often associated with Fauvism and Expressionism. At right is Errege Zabarra (1916-1937), Carnegie Institute, Pittsburg and Femme enceinte devant le miroir (1906), Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris.
Gallery
la femme italienne
1905, Jeu de massacre (Slaughter), (Forains, Cabotins, Pitres), (La noce à Nini patte en l’air), watercolor, gouache, India ink and pastel on paper, 53 x 67 cm, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris
Odalisque
Fille I, vue arrière avec des bas rouges
And today is the birthday of Linda Pastan (The Bronx; May 27, 1932 – January 30, 2023 Chevy Chase, Maryland); poet of Jewish background. From 1991 to 1995 she was Poet Laureate of Maryland. She was known for writing short poems that address topics like family life, domesticity, motherhood, the female experience, aging, death, loss and the fear of loss, as well as the fragility of life and relationships. Her final collection of poetry was Almost an Elegy, published in 2022.
Verse
I rock and rock
in the warm amnesia of the sun.
When my griefs sing to me
from the bright throats of thrushes
I sing back.
— “Old Woman”
Consider the white space
between words on a page, not just
the margins around them. (…)
Now picture the brief space
before death enters, hat in hand:
these vanishing years, filled with years.’
– “Consider the Space Between Stars”
You must rock your pain in your arms
until it’s asleep, then leave it
in a darkened room
and tiptoe out.
For a moment you will feel
the emptiness of peace.
But in the next room
your pain is already stirring.
Soon it will be
calling your name.
“Instruction”
I came across somethin’ Tennessee Williams wrote that I thought you would appreciate. I know you feel a magnetic pull towards The Big Easy and the moon, as do I. I think this will help explain:
“New Orleans and the moon have always seemed to me to have an understanding between them, an intimacy of sisters grown old together, no longer needing more than a speechless look to communicate their feelings to each other. This lunar aosphere of the city draws me back whenever the waves of energy which removed me to more vital towns have spent themselves and a time of recession is called for. Each time I have felt some rather profound psychic wound, a loss or failure, I have returned to this city. At such periods I would seem to belong there and no place else in the country.”
The Angel in the Alcove
Tennessee Williams
Today’s love song comes from Guy Clark – Like a Coat from the Cold
Mac Tag
Matchless with a horse, a rifle, a song, a supper or a courtship. Walt Whitman
What did my fingers do before they held him? What did my heart do, with its love? Sylvia Plath
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