the search for mona lisa's smile.

[suannz]

there she sits.
mona lisa, the woman;
in her half-smile, half-despair,
amongst oil strokes of black and gray.
slender hands, delicate fingers,
telling eyes.
they ask, "am i forever to be confined?
in this solitude
in this darkness
in this half-life?
neither joyous
nor in despair."

and, hark! here: a man.
but lo! two there are.
the first, "impressionist",
he calls himself.
brilliant and magnificent,
they call his work.

with eloquent words,
and a zest for life,
he beckons the pale lady
to stand upon his canvas.

"not so fast!" screams the other.
"symbolist", they label him.
"come with me, be my subject,
for i define the themes of life".
love and pain,
death and melancholy,
"stand here, and free you'll be".

seduced by nostalgia,
joyous for change,
mona lisa flees her cage.
ignoring the woes of vincent van gogh,
"for whom," she thinks,
"would believe his tormented soul
to be capable of images of joy?"

and so, she runs,
away into the palette,
with her new maker:
edvard munch.
"stay still," he commands,
as he begins to paint.
brush strokes curl and ripple
the surface.
inspired by red sunsets
fuelled by volcanoes,
in a furious rage,
drowns the white canvas
into a stormy scarlet.

"oh," she cries. "what have you done?"
mona lisa's half-smile,
no longer there.
her new fingers,
long and dreadful,
placed upon her cheeks,
narrow. hollow.

her skeletal eyes stare
boring holes into the watcher's glance.
her delicate mouth
whose corners turn
neither up
nor down
only around
into a silent, eternal,
scream.

[edit] References to: Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" and Edvard Munch's "The Scream".