On Seeing the Mona Lisa

On Seeing the Mona Lisa By Elton Camp When I was at the Louvre I just had to go See a famous painting done by Leonardo But it took me really quite a long while To see Mona Lisa’s world famous smile For people to see it too good they must fear Because a railing wouldn’t let anybody near That they had things to hide it seemed to me If it had more light, it’d be much easier to see When I finally got as close to it as I could What they wanted to conceal I understood Its fame most certainly had been oversold Why, it must have been a hundred years old Mona Lisa was wearing a dark old dress And her long, stringy hair was a total mess A part in the middle made her look so dumb Her hair net surely needed pulling up some An outfit tacky as that she must have stolen And her right hand looks like it’s all swollen On her too-fat fingers she wore not a ring Hanging around her neck wasn’t a thing Bags under her eyes were ugly and deep Like she hadn’t been getting much sleep Maybe so a model he wouldn’t have to pay He had his scrubbing woman pose that way That would account for her really nice smile She wouldn’t be doing hard work for a while Looking closer, I had to say, “Why I declare, That picture has lots of cracks most everwhere.” If I come back to Paris, I won’t see it anymore I’ve seen much better paintings in a resale store It may have been sort of fine when it was new But of decorating use it is now about through