Dante and Boccaccio Walk in to a Bar...

“Cin, cin!” Dante Alighieri and Giovanni Boccaccio exchanged as they clink their raised glasses of beer. Dante looked down into his mug before he stated:

“You know, Boccaccio, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about this country of ours’. It seems like things are always changing; sometimes I think we have a new foreign king just about every week! First we had the Normans, then the French. When will Italy be Italian?! In my opinion, we all need to get behind the Pope. He is the one who should have all the power. Besides, a country is only as good and prosperous as it is virtuous; if we all practiced religious virtuosity we wouldn’t have so many problems.”

“Easy for you to say, Dante. You were born into nobility and always had it easy. I, on the other hand, am the illegitimate son of a merchant! I have always been looked down upon. I studied in Napoli, but my life wasn’t easy. I got ahead in life on my wit and intellect. If you ask me, that’s what will keep Italy together, even while this Black Death wreaks complete havoc on our cities. And you know what I think? I think maybe the Church is part of the problem. There’s so much hypocrisy, what with all these wealthy friars who have supposedly given their lives to charity and chastity. Why do you think I set the Decameron in the Tuscan countryside? The cities are just outposts of religious hypocrisy,” Boccaccio stated. “I wanted my characters to get out where they could breathe clean air, literally and figuratively.”

“Boccaccio! What you speak of is heresy! How can you go against the Church? Maybe the problem is that we were writing almost 30 years apart, and times were different. But we must live our lives for God. Otherwise you will descend into Hell! Don’t you remember what I said about the time I visited Hell? ‘…the grim terrain shook violently; and the fright it gave me even now in recollection makes me sweat. Out of the tear-drenched land a wind arose which blasted forth into a reddish light, knocking my senses out of me completely, and I fell as one falls tired into sleep.’”

“As terrifying as Hell sounds, I think this pestilence is hell enough. I prefer to enjoy life now, while I know that I still have life. Besides, there are many reasons for a man to fall to the ground, as you did in Hell. Why, take Ser Ciapelletto from my own opera. ‘He was a great glutton and phenomenal drinker, so much so, in fact, that sometimes he suffered in a, well, less than polite way.’ He had a great many other vices, but in the end, his wit got the best of everyone, and he became a saint! He’s not so unlike some of the saints and friars I know of these days,” Boccaccio declared before gulping down the last of his beer.

“Giovanni Boccaccio! You are a lost cause! I’ve lost my taste for this drink now, not only because of the way you gluttonously slurped yours down but also for all the blasphemy you’re preaching,” said Dante with a huff.

“So, uh…I guess you won’t be finishing that…?” And with that, Boccaccio reached across the table for Dante’s beer and finished it in one swallow.

Un Bacione

Nel manoscritto dell'amore il bacio è la firma.
-Anonimo

A Lullaby

Paint me in blues, reds, and purples, like a Tom Waits song of disproportionate beauty and fear, illiterate and shivering, naked, stark, and resplendent.

Picture me in the sunset, escaping just beyond the horizon line, disappearing from your line of sight into memory.

Remember me standing on bare tiptoes, reaching for the last orange on the tree, arms outstretched like branches crying for the clouds.

See me everywhere and nowhere at all, blooming like late summer goldenrod between rows of weeping sunflowers, bowed down to the first days of the Fall.

Anticipate the rain and feel like spring, waiting for your mother's hand to pull the leaves down around your sleeping eyes.

Lend me your boat for crossing the river and forgive its incorrigible darkness as you push me away.

Go home and listen to the sounds the sun makes as it bulges its belly into the corners of your room, popping like toy fireworks on pavement.

Blame it on disposition, constitution, intuition--anything but chance. Because what is whim without desire? What takes the place of anything once it's gone?

Wake up where you fell asleep and take the love from your back pocket. Flip to the last page and onto it pen: A voice made for lullabies will never speak many words.

The Trapeze Swinger

For me this song is like the smell of spring rain, a warm hand hold, and wet grass between my toes.

It's just like being up and being down in the same moment, holding a baby for the first time, or burying a friend I barely knew.

It's everything all at once and nothing at all, like being warm in the middle of the winter.

When I hear it, I think of my grandmother's rose bush on the side of my house and how we could always count on a rose for my brother's November birthday.

When he sings, I feel the way I did when I first sang out loud.

It's the sunrise and the sunset, my last yawn before falling asleep and my first thought upon waking.

This song is beauty in emptiness.

Italian Sunday

On my trek to il duomo for Mass one Sunday morning, I passed an old man coming out of la pasticceria on Via Ulisse Rocchi, carrying a cake-sized package tied with red string. He looked so happy; he wore a terrifically huge grin on his face, just like a little boy who'd just been given his first red bicycle. I couldn't help being delighted myself. I saw him eyeing my grin, and I mentally cleared by throat. But instead of a polite "Buon giorno" the cute old man positively burst with a joyful, "CIAO!"

I returned it with equal gusto, feeling happy and warm to the tips of my fingers.

Jesus Is Coming: Look Busy

Heard during a game of water pong at the Slanty Shack in northern Missouri on a cold January night:


Drew: "If Jesus were here, they'd all be wine."

Greg: "At least purified water."

Nella Stazione

Approaching the Giarre-Riposto station, the voyeur in me immediately spots the 20-something couple making out on the platform, surrounded by other waiting Sicilians. She has her hair up in a high, side pony-tail, something I have seen since about the 3rd grade. She's taller than he is, poor bastard. I can't see much of him from the way he's positioned, but he appears to be not only shorter, but slighter in frame than his perfectly average girlfriend.

Even from my window on this moving train I can clearly see her wide-open eyes, mid lip-lock and all. I wonder which of them is leaving. Is she relieved to see him go? to finally get him and his short-man syndrome out of her life--if not for good--at least for a while? or is she looking forward to leaving him in Catania while she escapes to something more? And does he have any idea at all?

In my mind, I smirk and shamefully make horns with my lifted index and pinkie fingers.