Dear Zazie,
Hey Zazie, I found your note, Bet you didn’t know, and no I did not, and it has taken my breath, which I no longer thought could happen. It will take a few days to process. I shared your note with Mac Tag and he is turning it into verse.
Here is Mac Tag‘s Lovers’ Chronicle to his muse. Follow us on twitter @cowboycoleridge. Rhett
The Lovers’ Chronicle
Dear Muse,
© copyright 2020 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved
“I pass by this cafe often,
always at a busy time, and stop.
As I peer through the window,
close enough to see my breath,
I see you sitting there. Always
looking so intent, so deep in thought.
I watch your hand as it flows across the page
and I see the grin come across your face.
I wonder if it is me or another beauty
that has your heart. I play it over and over
in my head. Me walking in and standing there
before you. Would it be the start or an ending?”
© copyright 2018 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved
i need words
i need inspiration
look at me
let me see your eyes
your smile
that always works
everything has not been said
dream carries the desire,
your kiss, your memory
an oath…
your shiverin’ body,
your voice and the soft sighin’
repeat these words,
words which attach
that become a link to hope
that will not stop
that will not allow fear
to have a look
when you smile
© copyright 2017 mac tag/cowboy Coleridge all rights reserved
| Ernest Christopher Dowson | |
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Ernest Dowson
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Today is the birthday of Ernest Christopher Dowson (Lee, London; 2 August 1867 – 23 February 1900 Catford); poet, novelist, and short-story writer, often associated with the Decadent movement.
In 1889, aged 23, Dowson fell in love with the eleven-year-old Adelaide “Missie” Foltinowicz, daughter of a Polish restaurant owner; in 1893 he unsuccessfully proposed to her. To Dowson’s despair, Adelaide was eventually to marry a tailor.
- They are not long, the days of wine and roses;
Out of a misty dream
Our path emerges for a while, then closes
Within a dream.- “Vitae Summa Brevis Spem Nos Vetet Incohare Longam” (1896). This title from Horace: “The short span of life forbids us to entertain long hopes.”
- I understand that absinthe makes the tart grow fonder.
- Letter to Arthur Moore (February 1899).
- O pray the earth enfold
Our life-sick hearts and turn them into dust.- A Last Word (1899).
I have forgot much, Cynara! gone with the wind,
Flung roses, roses riotously with the throng,
Dancing, to put thy pale, lost lilies out of mind;
But I was desolate and sick of an old passion,
Yea, all the time, because the dance was long:
I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.
– Ernest Dowson, from Non Sum Qualis eram Bonae Sub Regno Cynarae, third stanza (1894).
A love story from the Wild West. Well, maybe an unrequited love story. It was on this day in 1876 that Wild Bill Hickok was shot in the back of the head and died. And it was on yesterday’s (1 August) day in 1901 that Calamity Jane died. So who was in love with who? Well as with most tales of the west, what follows is specualtion. In 1876, Calamity Jane settled in the area of Deadwood, South Dakota, in the Black Hills. She became friendly with Hickok and Charlie Utter, having travelled with him to Deadwood in Utter’s wagon train. Jane greatly admired Hickok, allegedly to the point of infatuation and possiblely obsessed with his personality and his life. After Hickok was killed during a poker game, Jane claimed to have been married to Hickok and that Hickok was the father of her child (Jean), who she said was born on 25 September 1873. No records are known to exist which prove the birth of a child, and the romantic slant to the relationship might have been fabrication. During the period that the alleged child was born, she was working as a scout for the army. At the time of his death, Hickok was newly married to Agnes Lake Thatcher. His untimely death makes it a sad tale whatever one chooses to believe. Of course, I believe it was an unrequited love; Jane for Hickok.
There can only be one song to follow this story. I particularly like the closin’ stanza:
Heavenly wine and roses
Seem to whisper to me when you smile
Heavenly wine and roses
Seem to whisper to me when you smile
Exactly how I felt when you smiled at me.
The song of the day is the Cowboy Junkies version of the Lou Reed song – “Sweet Jane”
Today is the birthday of Arthur Garfield Dove (Canandaigua, New York; August 2, 1880 – November 23, 1946); artist. An early American modernist, he is often considered the first American abstract painter. Dove used a wide range of media, sometimes in unconventional combinations, to produce his abstractions and his abstract landscapes.
Dove spent a seven-year period on a houseboat called Mona with Helen Torr, known as “Reds” for the fiery color of her hair. Torr was also a painter. Although the psychological consequences benefited Dove’s art, his life with Torr was difficult. Dove’s wife, Florence never cared about Dove’s passion for art, and was more socially inclined. After 25 years of marriage, Dove left Florence. Florence would not grant him a divorce. When he departed, he left behind everything except his copies of Camera Work and Stieglitz’s letters. When Dove’s wife Florence died unexpectedly, he paid $250.00 for the funeral expenses and sent flowers, but did not go to the funeral in Geneva. Dove and Torr were not able to wed immediately as Torr had not divorced her first husband. Dove and Torr did eventually marry on April 1932 in the New York City Hall with a brief service and using a ten-cent store ring.
Gallery
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Sails, 1911–12
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Dark Abstraction, 1917
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Thunderstorm, 1918
Today is the birthday of Albert Bloch (St. Louis, Missouri; August 2, 1882 – March 23, 1961 Lawrence, Kansas); Modernist artist and the only American artist associated with Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider), a group of early 20th-century European modernists.
Gallery
in his studio, Munich
[
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1902, “Prof. Wayupski’s Aerial Stunts”, St. Louis Star
1913, Summer Night, oil on canvas, 119 x 114 cm
Mac Tag
Romance should never begin with sentiment. It should begin with science and end with a settlement. – Oscar Wilde
Wavering between the profit and the loss
in this brief transit where the dreams cross
the dreamcrossed twilight between birth and dying.
– T.S. Eliot
Progress is impossible without change, & those who can’t change their mind can’t change anything. ~ George Bernard Shaw
Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life. – Mark Twain
Force does not constitute right… obedience is due only to legitimate powers. ~ Rousseau
The secret of happiness is freedom. The secret of freedom is courage. – Thucydides
I know the voices dying with a dying fall. – T.S. Eliot
I am no prophet . and here’s no great matter; I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker. – T.S. Eliot
If they substituted the word ‘Lust’ for ‘Love’ in the popular songs it would come nearer the truth. – Sylvia Plath
The writer is either a practicing recluse or a delinquent, guilt-ridden one – or both. Usually both. – Susan Sontag
And the moon is wilder every minute. – W.B. Yeats
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