The Medici have headed to the south of France for a family reunion.

It will be a week-long Renaissance picnic of ribald merriment, volleyball, group photos, and intrigue.

All the thieving aunts, murderous uncles, despot grandfathers, and illegitimate cousins will swing down from the family tree to pitch tents in the countryside, roast infidels around the campfire, and jockey for supremacy under the stars.

If you are a Christian, yet alone a Medici, in the 16th Century, the world is your proverbial stained-glass oyster.

And while the Medici frolic, plot, and cavort, the reigning Pope adjusts his rocket-shaped mitre and passes his golden shepherd’s staff rhythmically from hand to hand like a ballroom dandy.

It is good to be pope, especially in the Renaissance:   artists are ripe for the plucking, money is no object, and God calls all the shots.

Being the pipeline to eternal salvation carries its perks.

The Pope is off for a week-long tour of mausoleums, basilicas, and gelato.

Building monuments to oneself on behalf of the All-Mighty is such an awesome mission statement.

The Pope whistles “Salve Regina” as he locks the door to the Vatican.

Michelangelo holds his breath.

Can it be?

Have the dual handcuffs of politics and religion slipped off his wrists, if only for a week?

He lets out a hoarse whisper of “Hallelujah” and begins to run.

He jets down the stairs, sails down the streets, beehives to his studio.

The musk of creativity spews off his body and fills the darkened room to every cobwebbed corner.

Time stands still as he strips the Madonna of her beatific smile, hurls the apple out the garden of Eden, and wildly massacres form and function into color and passion.

He has one week to truly live.  

He has waited and prayed for this moment every day of his life.

Throwing open the wooden shutters, he comes face to face with his soul for the very first time.

Copyright 2010

Baby Buddha sits on my dashboard in an infinite state of contemplation.

Don’t think that I don’t see him out of my peripheral vision as a single acceleration begins my long day’s journey into work.

Whether I drive five meandering miles per hour or a psychotic eighty makes no difference to the Buddha.

He is The Teacher, stable in serenity, unmoved in meditation.

Even when I am cut off in traffic and explosions of expletives detonate all over Mount Honda, the Baby Buddha sits safely encased in his protective zone of zen.

His integrity and grace annoy and unnerve me.

That is why I slam on the brakes for no good reason, sending the Baby Buddha flying out of his lotus position, sprawling out onto the floor.

I cannot help but smirk as I hear the irritated whisper of a tiny:  “What the hell?!”

Copyright 2010

He was once her personal chef, handpicking only the sweetest unripened words, drizzling them with lover’s honey until his fingers became as sticky as the succulent phrases he fed her.

Her appetite for the cuisine of amor was whetted by his experimentation and experience.

She could have cared less about the calories. 

It was the fact that he cooked up such delicious poetry just for her that made her hungry.

Each morsel of endearment he fed her was marinated in metaphor, each flute of passion he poured was aged in imagery.

Their life together was a feast of infinite preparation and consumption.

But, as with fine wine and food, it is possible to become sated on epircurean love sonnets.

It wasn’t long before the exotic spices he pinched over his nouns upset her delicate system.

It was just a question of when before his intricate, intimate sauces became bland and mundane to an overstimulated palate.

And that is the moment when she started sneaking out at midnight for greasy slang and polyunsaturated cliches.

The heartburn made her feel alive.

She left one day for a busboy who constantly cleared away her half-eaten sentences and kept her spirit immaculately empty.

And the chef?

He sits alone in his gourmet studio now, concocting linguistic linguine and other entrees of gastronomical grammar.

There are still so many figures of speech to be baked, puree’d, and served on a bed of passionate verbs.

But there is no lover to feed anymore, no significant other to marvel at his magic.

The studio steams with the savory smell of tonight’s spicy syntax…all that delicious language just going to waste.

He sighs as he turns on the garbage disposal and forces his unwanted poetry deep down the drain.

Copyright 2010

I ride my poems like a bicycle, legs pumping through lines in acceleration, hands gripping the bars to navigate around obstacles.

Discarded phrases are clothespinned to the spokes, making a noise more formidable than my own.

Sometimes I ride a tricycle when I am immature, knees at my ears, plodding along and balanced.

Sometimes I go retro with a banana seat, apehanger handlebars, and a transistor radio taped to the frame.  It’s all about the image.

You prefer my lightweight racer, the one with elaborate gears that smooth over reality, while I am drawn to the sturdy urban bike, with its large fendered tires and comfortable seat.

This is the one I ride without a helmet, legs straight out sideways off  the pedals, screaming aloud as I fly down a hill, watching ideas shoot out the basket.

Copyright 2010