TO MONA LISA

by Renton de Alwis      

 

I think you are ugly, selfish
and too fat.
Why you are a luminary,
            I never could understand.
The rest of the world must be crazy.

 

You couldn’t……
Did you ever give yourself totally
            to your man, Mona Lisa?
Did you love him selflessly?

 

You wanted the whole world to
            love and adore you……
You would not otherwise have let
            Da Vinci prostitute you to mankind.

 

I see no beauty in you,
            only an obsession, you are too straight, artificial.
The way you rest your hands on each other,
            so calculatingly,
Your nose is too fine……
You have no heart,
            only a set of lumpy breasts,  
            to cover up the hollowness inside……

You clothe yourself to hide all this,

            and took so much space on the canvas.

The critics and others blind,
            had got me to love you for so many years……
through out my youth,
            until I saw, for myself,
The real you.

First Published in ‘Navasilu’ edited by Prof. Ashley Halpe in 1976 and then in  ‘ Modern Sri Lankan Poetry; An  Anthology’ – Edited by Prof. DCRA Goonetilleke 1987