The Smile of Mona LisaBy Fatima Ijaz
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The dream carried the significance of water-waves. It crashed incessantly into dualities, into vague assessments and futuristic omens. The dream was all there was. Enchanted as it seemed, it wasn’t a house that could be inhabited. Yet, it had its ghosts. This was even like a fortune teller’s tricks. It was unreal. I fancied the cigarette’s lips on my lungs, opening and closing like a surrealist clock. The more I thought of it, the more bizarre it became. A complex spider-web. A wet mansion. A wicked work of art. A demonic pause into uncertainties and a world in which nothing could be trusted.
Realism, on the other hand, offered solutions, ease and comfort. There is only one way a line could be read, not in dissemination – in a multiplicity that attached itself onto your leg like an octopus’ bite. Rather, it relieved meaning of its necessary absurdity. Here you could smile as you walked along the road. An inward smile that promised nothing to the passerby. How’s that. It wasn’t a hell living inside your eyes, that glowed uncertainly, casting a fiendish tremble on your lips. It wasn’t a secret that was sewn on your lips that could be pictured best next to a butterfly’s wing in a sewing machine. Mona Lisa. There was that hesitant hush in a night glow as if she knew what it was to know you.
Scent – affliction – arousal – negation. The clock chimes. The serendipity of this heart-beat. Is it yours? You are unsure. You don’t want to make any statements, commitments. But it’s floating inside your brain like a burning lamp on Diwali waters. It is certain that it is ferocious, malevolent even. It is also certain that it is benign, sweet. How can it carry both these elements at the same time? Mona Lisa. She was crying just a moment before, she glanced at you from her night malaise. She is certain she is smiling, yet there is that dream that hovers in her eyes like a menace, like mercy.
Something of the duality has rubbed onto lips, like love-lust. Turn around and let it trace your water footsteps on sand streets. A hurried glance can tell that there is no such thing as enigma, it is all sorted out, defined in lacks and lunacy. And yet, the murderous clarity of her sighs seduce you. You begin to re-inhabit your own ghost. She is aware of it, because she has seen you here before. She wasn’t sure you’d come. But here you are. She is laughing in her maddened eyes. Mona Lisa.
Begin like a novice, there is no other way.
Realism, on the other hand, offered solutions, ease and comfort. There is only one way a line could be read, not in dissemination – in a multiplicity that attached itself onto your leg like an octopus’ bite. Rather, it relieved meaning of its necessary absurdity. Here you could smile as you walked along the road. An inward smile that promised nothing to the passerby. How’s that. It wasn’t a hell living inside your eyes, that glowed uncertainly, casting a fiendish tremble on your lips. It wasn’t a secret that was sewn on your lips that could be pictured best next to a butterfly’s wing in a sewing machine. Mona Lisa. There was that hesitant hush in a night glow as if she knew what it was to know you.
Scent – affliction – arousal – negation. The clock chimes. The serendipity of this heart-beat. Is it yours? You are unsure. You don’t want to make any statements, commitments. But it’s floating inside your brain like a burning lamp on Diwali waters. It is certain that it is ferocious, malevolent even. It is also certain that it is benign, sweet. How can it carry both these elements at the same time? Mona Lisa. She was crying just a moment before, she glanced at you from her night malaise. She is certain she is smiling, yet there is that dream that hovers in her eyes like a menace, like mercy.
Something of the duality has rubbed onto lips, like love-lust. Turn around and let it trace your water footsteps on sand streets. A hurried glance can tell that there is no such thing as enigma, it is all sorted out, defined in lacks and lunacy. And yet, the murderous clarity of her sighs seduce you. You begin to re-inhabit your own ghost. She is aware of it, because she has seen you here before. She wasn’t sure you’d come. But here you are. She is laughing in her maddened eyes. Mona Lisa.
Begin like a novice, there is no other way.
Fatima Ijaz is a poet and teaches English and Speech at the Institute of Business Administration (IBA), Karachi, Pakistan. She is a contributing editor at Pandemonium Journal. She has studied English at Hartwick College, USA, York University, Canada and Eastern Michigan University, USA. Her poetry and also some short stories have been published in numerous publications including The Aleph Review, Ideas&Futures, Tillism, The Write Launch and the Bombay Review. She has also written on culture and literature in Naya Daur, The Friday Times and Dawn. She was recently a panelist at the Bradford Literature Festival event based on “Memory of Place.” She was also a reader and a panelist at KLF 2022. Her book, “The Shade of Longing and other Poems”, has been published by The Little Book Company both as an e-book and a print edition in December 2021.