The Aesthetic Dinner Party

“Fortune is a woman…”Machiavelli

Michelangelo painted beautiful hands.

If he was a guest at my dinner table

he might quickly study hands,

hands lifting wine glasses

hands serving bouillabaisse in steaming pots

hands arrnging yellow tulips, blue iris in a glass pitcher.

If Leonardo ws a guest at my dinner table

He’d bring his leather bound sketch book

draw the tulips as though he were drawing precise muscle mass

study how man’s body went together

cut into my cooked chicken and fish

as though dissecting cadavers.

If Cezanne was a guest at my dinner table,

he’d glide through the front door,

embrace tulips and iris with the eyes of a still life painter

looking at flowers from all angles,

Then show us parallel worlds.

If Degas was a guest at my dinner table,

he’d pastel the iris and the tulips,

place them in a diagonal plane at the feet of a dancer.

If Georgia was a guest at my dinner table,

she’d paint one iris on a 40 x 60 canvas and call it non-sexual.

If Frida was a guest at my dinner table,

she’d paint the tulips in a jungle,

herslef in the middle of it,

with amondey seated on her shoulder.

If fortune is a woman, and I fortunate enough

to entertain such esteemed dinner guests

I would furnish the art supplies

and skip the bouillabaisse.

2010 edited