Tuesday, July 19, 2016

Jokond ile Si-Ya-U

Gioconda and Si-Ya-U

    to the memory of my friend SI-YA-U,
    whose head was cut of in Shanghai.
A CLAIM
Renowned Leonardo’s
world-famous
“La Gioconda”
has disappeared.
And in the space
vacated by the fugitive
a copy has been placed.
The poet inscribing
the present treatise
knows more than a little
about the fate
of the real Gioconda.
She fell in love
with a seductive
graceful youth;
a honey-tongued
almond-eyed Chinese
named Si-Ya-U.
Gioconda ran off
after her lover;
Gioconda was burned
in a Chinese city.
I, Nazim Hikmet,
authority
on this matter,
thumbing my nose at friend and foe
five times a day,
undaunted
claim
I can prove it;
if I can’t,
I’ll be ruined and banished
forever from the realm of poesy.


A detail of Mona Lisa’s hands show that Leonardo had initially painted one of them clenched, as if the woman were about to rise from a chair, which is no longer visible in finished the work. Image credit: “Mona Lisa: Inside the Painting”, by Jean-Pierre Mohen, Michel Menu and Bruno Mottin.

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