Da Vinci’s Portrait 

I am Mona Lisa and I am art

Send me your sweet love letters for a start!

Go on bended knees with your proposals!

There will never be counterproposals.

Come with your dreams and many fantasies!

Come from your different nations and countries!

Come with your longings, it’s a gazing spree!

Let your gazes take you to the high sea.

I feel the impulse of your strong desires,

for to my heart, every man aspires!

Build on my smile, I smile to tempt a lover!

Your lustful desires I will uncover

with nothing more than my own gracious smile.

You desire to have me walk down the aisle,

but I am nothing more than Da Vinci’s Portrait,

and a portrayal of his artistic trait.

(First published by Micromance magazine in 2025)

Joseph C Ogbonna is a widely published poet. Some of his many works have been published by Synchronized Chaos, Spillwords Press, Micromance magazine, PoetryXhunger, Waxpoetry Magazine, Borderless, Orenuag Journal, Ihram and more than two dozen anthologies and magazines. He also has two self-published volumes to his credit. His works, ‘Napoleon to Josephine and Josephine to Napoleon,’ had been aired by the BBC Radio 3 for a historic documentary.

He is a graduate of Nigeria’s famous Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, where he bagged a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Education. He has PGD, MBA, M.Sc and M.Ed degrees from other Nigerian institutions of higher learning. He lives in Enugu, Nigeria with his wife, Chizoba.