Amy Glynn's Wreath Wraps Up National Poetry Month (The Tattooed Poets Project)

I am proud and honored to end National Poetry Month 2015 with the amazing work of Amy Glynn.

When we first started discussing tattoos several years ago, Amy was un-inked, and gave me the impression that tattoos were not for her. Not only did she change her opinion, she went big and startlingly beautiful.

For a while, it was doubtful that Amy would contribute, because of the location of her tattoo, and the desire to showcase it only if it was photographed artistically. Finally, this year, the stars aligned, and Amy sent me some wonderful shots of her tattoo in all its glory. Enjoy:

Photo by Vincent Louis Carrella

And a different, closer perspective:

Photo by Vincent Louis Carrella

What makes Amy's ink even more remarkable is how it ties in with her work as a poet. I'll let Amy explain:

"The botanical images in the tattoo reference poems in [my] book 'A Modern Herbal' (Measure Press, 2013). The white-throated swifts reference a poem published in Poetry Northwest in 2009 which will appear in a subsequent publication.

The wreath of interwoven fruits and flowers echo the primary preoccupations of the book – morning glory and salvia divinorum are powerful entheogens; brugmansia is a hallucinogen with a tendency to induce the belief that you can fly. The wine grapes represent alchemy and nod to a lifelong fascination with Sufi imagery. Ginkgo biloba represents tenacity; opium poppies are of course common tropes for oblivion. The pomegranate represents mortality and fertility; the apple, cultivation and waywardness. Sunflowers are an expression of the Golden Mean and represent order and design. Walnuts stand for memory. The white-throated swift is believed to be the fastest animal on earth with air speeds of up to 200mph."

Karen Roze of Sacred Rose Tattoo in Berkeley, California is responsible for the botanical images. Her work appeared yesterday here on another poet. Danny Chong of Black and Blue in San Francisco did the birds.

Amy sent me several poems from the collection and asked me to choose. I selected two that I thought most wonderful:

Opium Poppy

Papaver somniferum

You would’ve loved this moonrise: creepy

orange-on-purple, swollen, cloud-

occluded. It’s October’s last

gasp, litanies of rattling stuff

and the dry rain of bloodied leaves

and air a grassfire’s ghost has haunted

all day. And all of it

echoes so, darling. Quit

hanging around. Yes, I said I wanted

you always with me. But love’s

cruelly shortsighted. No, enough:

bring on the narcolepsy: vast

figureless rivers, a cold, loud,

sedating rush. I’m just so sleepy.

Last season’s stands of double poppies

still stand here, though by now the lavish

silk petals are mere memory. Not

so fragile as they looked, I guess,

and somehow more themselves like this,

as if the blossoms always were

a smokescreen for

a darker, truer, more

essential form, the cynosure,

the censer, the ripe cicatrice 

sleep wells from, black and bottomless.

Go. I’ll be all right when the thought

of you no longer wants to ravish

me with its endless, morphing copies.

~ ~ ~

Apple

Malus domestica

Where do desire and fulfilment meet?

It’s here. The place where one bite makes you need

the next. Sweet. Sweet: desire’s prototype;

sweet meaning perfect, meaning ideal. It’s

a feedback loop, look: lick the sugar from

my lip, see for yourself if it’s satiety

or lust for more. Or both, a branching, each

leaf-tip light-bathed and glaucous, reaching, and

at last at last we taste it, or at least

are so lost in the dream of it we never

detect the molecule of cyanide

at the center of the thing. This is forever.

Bitter unkillable seed. Eternal return

with a twist.

~ ~ ~

Amy Glynn’s poems and essays appear widely in journals and anthologies including The Best American Poetry. She has been a James Merrill House Fellow, a six time alum of the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and the inaugural recipient of Poetry Northwest’s Carolyn Kizer Award. Most recently her essay “Apples” (northeast quadrant of the tattoo) won Literal Latte’s 2014 Essay Award.

I always thank the poets who have contributed here but, in Amy's case, to do so in a single line doesn't sit well with me.

It has been a journey working with Amy on this submission and, even though I have never met her face-to-face, I feel that I have. We've had many conversations over the years and I am eternally grateful not only for the beauty of her submission (the tattoo and the poems), but for the whole process.

I offer up my profound gratitude to Amy Glynn for her amazing contribution and for her entrusting me with sharing her tattoo and words with all of my readers.

This entry is ©2015 Tattoosday. The poems and tattoo photos are reprinted with the poet's permission.

If you are reading this on another web site other than Tattoosday, without attribution, please note that it has been copied without the author's permission and is in violation of copyright laws. Please feel free to visit http://tattoosday.blogspot.com and read our original content. Please let me know if you saw this elsewhere so I contact the webmaster of the offending site and advise them of this violation in their Terms of Use Agreement.

The Tattooed Poets Project: Michael Costello

I met Michael Costello back in February 2014 at Poet's House in New York City at the launch reading for The Incredible Sestina Anthology.

I spotted his tattoo in the lobby after the reading, we got to talking, and here we are, a year later, with the penultimate post for the 2015 Tattooed Poets Project.

Check it out:

This is a complete poem by e.e. cummings: "seeker of truth//follow no path/all paths lead where//truth is here."

Michael tells us:

"I spent years marred by ambivalence about what to get inked.

How does one ultimately decide?

As a child, 5 years old or so, all the way through to my college years, I remember my mother would recite various poetic fragments. Often it was something by e.e. cummings. These recitations became part of my internal dialogue, part of who I am. This one, above all, resonated with me. I had the tattoo done when I was 31 or so.

I worked with a tattoo artist in Saratoga Springs, NY. This was 6 or 7 years ago. I remember his name was Matt. Instead of using cummings' distinctive lower case typewriter font, I wanted to choose something that captured the essence of the poem. Serendipitously, Matt was working on an original font. And that's what this is."

Michael graciously sent us a trio of poems:

Thoughts of a Young Gizmo

I.

It is such a beautiful dead center

I

just had to write you

a printed communication

from the town meeting

and to show

that I’m not marked

by extreme

excitement

confusion

or agitation

I only slipped

on a liquid containing

a substance suspended

in the giant feeling of loneliness

and drowned in the “Baton Rouge”

of human activity or interest

you were too good to demand

or require

Thoughts of a Young Gizmo

II.

I gain passage despite obstacles

in the late afternoon

and the smoke detector still

occupies itself with amusement

about the burning of Li Po

as it has for hundreds of years

she always grasps with clarity

and certainty

how to be completely democratic

O my daybreak

my you

who is in possession

of my complete affections

daylong daughter of a monarch

may you not be

extending a period of time

on the course used in going

from one place

to another

Obituary Song

During hapless hours, she listens

to his rattling coffer.

He’s been a living inside

this coffin for years.

For far too many times

‘round the clock now

he’s sat with his sentiment

at the bar, like a portrait by old Rembrandt;

but oh, bottle-side, she’s got a smile

that's kept him hangin' on.

On ashen days she's made

his oxidized heart glisten

‘cause she's got a voice

could make a song out of the obituary section.

"Is it a better life, to be a tramp

or just get trampled on?"

"Is it a better truth or lie

that life only ends when you die?"

On coal-colored days she's made

his dull heart glisten

and in the ambulance now he hears her,

singin’ his name out, like a siren.

~ ~ ~

Michael Costello was born in Buffalo in 1976 and holds an MFA in Creative Writing from The New School. Since then he has published in numerous print and online journals, including The Del Sol Review, MiPo, eye-rhyme, The Columbia Poetry Review, La Petite Zine, Tarpaulin Sky, and Essays & Fictions; he was also included in The Best American Poetry 2004, and in The Incredible Sestina Anthology. Currently, Michael lives and works in Cambridge, MA.

Clicking the links in the bio above will magically transport you to more of Michael's poetry.

Thanks to Michael Costello for sharing his tattoo and poems with us here on Tattoosday's Tattooed Poets Project!

This entry is ©2015 Tattoosday. The poems and tattoo are reprinted with the poet's permission.

If you are reading this on another web site other than Tattoosday, without attribution, please note that it has been copied without the author's permission and is in violation of copyright laws. Please feel free to visit http://tattoosday.blogspot.com and read our original content. Please let me know if you saw this elsewhere so I contact the webmaster of the offending site and advise them of this violation in their Terms of Use Agreement.

Melissa Eleftherion's Strawberries (The Tattooed Poets Project)

Our next tattooed poet is Melissa Eleftherion:

Melissa tells us:

"...My strawberries ... were done over the course of two years by Karen Roze of Sacred Rose Tattoo in Berkeley, CA. She & I collaborated on the general design of the piece, and discussed ways Karen might integrate the strawberries with the nearly-20 yr old & slightly misaligned medicine ring I already had on my upper arm. A lesson to trust my instincts, the medicine ring was artfully designed but carelessly tattooed on me in the kitchen of a tattoo artist named Steve around 2am back when I was seventeen in Brooklyn, before tattooing was legal, before I learned to advocate for myself. My strawberries will always symbolize the many ways we can branch out from past traumas & pain to create beauty in the world. How we can make art from horror, and take little starts toward new growth and make spaces for healing. The strawberries are also a companion piece to those of my husband's whose fascination with strawberries alighted in me the possibility that kinship & love might just be possible."

Here is one of her poems, "little stem," which appeared originally in finery:

little stem

little combat flower

be strong in the overture

in the wave crash

too many shouting men

be strong be bold

yes yes

little feral light

moving

into

yes light

the wolf

the war

~ ~ ~

Melissa Eleftherion grew up in Brooklyn. She is the author of huminsect (dancing girl press, 2013), prism maps (dusie kollektiv, 2014), Pigtail Duty (dancing girl press, 2015), and several other chapbooks and fragments. Recent work appears or is forthcoming in Bone Bouquet, Bukowski Erasure Poetry Anthology, Delirious Hem, Dusie, Entropy, Finery, Manifesting the Female Epic, Mom Egg Review, Open Letters Monthly, Poet as Radio, So to Speak, & TRUCK. She works as a librarian with Mendocino County Libraries, and created, developed, and currently manages the Poetry Center Chapbook Exchange. You can find her online at https://apoetlibrarian.wordpress.com/.

Thanks to Melissa for sharing her tattoo and poem with us here on Tattoosday's Tattooed Poets Project!

This entry is ©2015 Tattoosday. The poem and tattoo are reprinted with the poet's permission.

If you are reading this on another web site other than Tattoosday, without attribution, please note that it has been copied without the author's permission and is in violation of copyright laws. Please feel free to visit http://tattoosday.blogspot.com and read our original content. Please let me know if you saw this elsewhere so I contact the webmaster of the offending site and advise them of this violation in their Terms of Use Agreement.

The Tattooed Poets Project: Jessica Melilli-Hand

Our next tattooed poet is Jessica Melilli-Hand, who submitted the following photo:

This tattoo reads, "This being human is a guest house/Be grateful for whoever comes."

Jessica elaborates:

"My tattoo features an excerpt from the beginning and (almost) end of The Guest House [by] Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks. The text surrounds an image of a Pipevine Swallowtail butterfly. I chose the text and the image for a couple of reasons.

First of all, I had the tattoo done at 13 Roses in East Atlanta Village (I forget the name of the artist, but he was wonderful and worked from a photograph of the butterfly, and I used to live in EAV) on April 27, 2013, one year after my father suddenly had a grand mal seizure (with no seizure history). He died five difficult months later from a glioblastoma (brain cancer, which caused the seizure). The butterfly in general is a symbol of transformations, of course, and I had always loved finding butterflies with my father, especially the gorgeous blue Pipevine Swallowtail, which is native to Georgia (as am I). 

The text also speaks of transformations and is a reminder to be grateful for *all* life brings (the end of the poem continues 'because each has been sent / as a guide from beyond'). The text was already incredibly important to me for coping with CRPS (complex regional pain syndrome), a debilitating chronic pain condition (we're talking wind blowing feels like fire) I developed after an electrical injury in 2003. In fact, I lost the ability to physically write, but I learned to use a voice program in order to keep writing my poetry (which had the interesting and even helpful effect of tuning me more into the sound/music). I memorized the Rumi poem, which I already loved, at the suggestion of one of my beloveds (Rumi, of course, often refers to the Beloved), and I repeat it often, in wonderful and in difficult times. 

This past summer, the poem helped me through after they drilled into my spine and cut skin away from muscle as I had an intrathecal pump implanted (basically a hockey-puck-like chunk of titanium in my abdomen filled with Prialt, medication derived from synthetic sea snail venom, that gets pumped into my spinal fluid). This medication is both amazing and insane, and as we continue to search for my perfect dose, I have lost and regained the ability to walk, and sound/light/movement are all pain-inducing and nauseating, among other crazy side effects, but the CRPS is more well-controlled than ever before. 

Again, this tattoo as well as the poem and ideas about transformation it evokes keep helping me through. I call upon the poem in times of joy as well, such as when I finally legally (at the federal level – still fighting for it in Georgia) wed my talented and beautiful wife in San Francisco in the summer of 2013. I'm quite happy with the tattoo (the color and shading of the butterfly is particularly stunning), which is a good thing, as I can't get any more. My CRPS was originally in my right arm and hadn't spread beyond it in over ten years, but three months after getting the tattoo, it spread to my left leg (where the tattoo is). Three months is quite awhile so it could be coincidental, as CRPS often eventually spreads on its own, but I found out later that tattoos could possibly cause spreading, so we have to play it safe. Since I can only be inked once, I'm glad I started with Rumi."

Jessica sent us two poems and, rather than choose between them, we are sharing both because one is
"a poem related to the situation with [her] father" and the other has to do with her CRPS. Jessica notes that "both have to do with the tattoo."

Love Song for My Father's Broken Teeth

Knocked-out boxer I can't help loving,

your face snarled beyond recognition

when Death seized your body,

the Grand Mal bang-bang-bang

knocking your head on the cracked-open door

to your dead mother's new heavenly home,

but you, stubborn man, wouldn’t go.

A wail broke open the night, woke us all

in our separate houses while your face swelled,

while your throat closed around jagged teeth,

but you wouldn't go, hawked each stuck piece out

for the medics to collect and later place by your bedside,

after they shoved the breath back into you,

after we gathered and prayed

or pretended to pray, after Mom cried Satan,

you slay me, and still I praise.

The first time your eyes opened,

the blue serpent was still hissing breath

down your throat. You grabbed and yanked

with a strength that surprised them, those stoic men,

until they had to strap your wrists to the bedrail.

Language scattered out of you: generation, generate,

need, Goddamnit, please. The doctors called this word-salad,

and as you slammed the restraints until they opened,

as an anarchy of nouns and verbs rioted past your broken teeth,

I know you tried to say death can’t hold me.

Dear difficult man who made and named me,

when your brain remembered which words you needed,

how to line them up and let them out, you looked, bewildered,

into my eyes, who are you?

                My name fell out of my body,

was buried without ceremony, without last words.

Because there was nothing else I could do,

I sang for you, for my name, for the tired nurses,

for the tantrum your brain had become,

and then you said it, Jessica, you said, Jessica.

I know, now, what it is to be reborn, to return

to first words: yes, Daddy, Jessica.

I couldn’t carry you back with me, though.

A tumor, the doctors said, cancer

they said, stage four, so I prayed

to them, but when they opened your skull

and saw the wrinkled face of God,

they couldn’t untangle Death

from your left temporal lobe,

from language, from our faces.

Some days you remember my name,

and some days neither of us can be sure.

You tell me your brain has made you

into four different people, now.

If I can close the eyes of my grief,

for a moment, I can see

a sort of beauty in this

becoming more

before you go.

Pain Jane

(originally published in Reunion: The Dallas Review, no.1, 2011)

Once, Jane's body was not

coals and flames. Once, Jane touched something

she should not.

          A fire-wire.

                That's when her synapses surged

             and crackled. That's when

she plugged in her spinal cord, when

brush fires first popped

                from her footsteps.

            Stop it,

Jane said, her parents said, the preacher said, stop it.

    The doctor said, it won't. It won't,

                           the doctor said.

The doctor roasted a marshmallow. A joke,

the doctor said. You will want to die,

                       but don't,

        said her friends. Lie back,

we'll have a barbecue. Jane's brain began to think

the way fire thinks. Jane wanted

to lick everyone.

    The state of California banned her,

even when she got a water wife. She was an act of God.

    Men flipped down masks, calculated

her heat input, welded things

together. Jane tried to keep

            her sparks to herself,

but her friends' arm hairs kept singeing

        into burnt hair smell.

Health Insurance said talk to Fire Insurance.

Fire Insurance said talk to Health Insurance.

All the ears closed  

fire-proof doors.

    Stay home, the doctor said, but Jane would not

stay home. Now

           that she was an eternal flame,

she had to go to the graves, had to

be the light lighting the path

between the breathing, the stopped.

~ ~ ~

Jessica Melilli-Hand is forthcoming in Hunger Mountain and is published in Painted Bride Quarterly, Barrow Street, and The Minnesota Review, among others. She won first place in the Agnes Scott Poetry Competition in 2014, judged by Terrance Hayes, in 2011, judged by Arda Collins, and in 2008, judged by Martín Espada.

Thanks to Jessica for sharing her tattoo and poems with us here on The Tattooed Poets Project on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2015 Tattoosday. The poems and tattoo are reprinted with the poet's permission.

If you are reading this on another web site other than Tattoosday, without attribution, please note that it has been copied without the author's permission and is in violation of copyright laws. Please feel free to visit http://tattoosday.blogspot.com and read our original content. Please let me know if you saw this elsewhere so I contact the webmaster of the offending site and advise them of this violation in their Terms of Use Agreement.

The Tattooed Poets Project: Amanda Crum

Our next tattooed poet is Amanda Crum:

Amanda explains:

"As a horror lover, I was looking for a tattoo that appealed to that side of my nature. Zombies, monsters, slashers, I love them all. But I also wanted to incorporate a part of myself--the artist and writer--so after I drew up a pinup girl, I asked my friend Leon Cress at Lion's Den Tattoo in Nicholasville, Kentucky to zombie-fy her and add some details to give her some personality. He added a paintbrush and pencil to make her even more unique to me, and I love her."

Here is a poem from Amanda:

P.W.T.

People have called me 

TRASH

because I’m tattooed

and grew up in a trailer park

Because I bear marks and

I bare them

The sin of skin

and of pride

But I’ve always been of the opinion

that TRASH

is a matter of behavior

and not style or geography

~ ~ ~

Amanda Crum is an artist and writer from Kentucky whose work can be seen online and in print publications such as Cracked Eye Magazine, SQ Magazine, and Dark Eclipse, among others. She loves horror, movies of all kinds, and the smell of old books.

Thanks to Amanda for sharing her cool tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2015 Tattoosday. The poem and tattoo are reprinted with the poet's permission.

If you are reading this on another web site other than Tattoosday, without attribution, please note that it has been copied without the author's permission and is in violation of copyright laws. Please feel free to visit http://tattoosday.blogspot.com and read our original content. Please let me know if you saw this elsewhere so I contact the webmaster of the offending site and advise them of this violation in their Terms of Use Agreement.

The Tattooed Poets Project Welcomes Back Izzy Oneiric

Izzy Oneiric first appeared on The Tattooed Poets Project three years ago in this post. The piece she shared is phenomenal, and her post was re-tweeted by Neil Gaiman, upon whose work the tattoo was based. It remains one of the most-viewed Tattoosday posts in our eight-year history.That said, when Izzy emailed me earlier this year about submitting some new work, I was definitely excited to see what she was sharing. I was not disappointed. Check it out:

Here's a different perspective:

Izzy calls this her "Flowering Outerspace Kudzu with Alien Burroughs Quote". She elaborates:

"The tattoo on my chest celebrates the life and spirit of Nathan Breitling, a dear friend and fellow poet. We met in the Poetry MFA program at Columbia College Chicago in 2009 and remained close until his sudden death last May. Everyone who knew him was devastated. He was a wonderful person and a promising poet. He was a light. Sometimes a black light and sometimes a strobe light, but always a light. Nate's family established a poetry fellowship in his honor. His friends at Phantom Limb Press created the Breitling Open Chapbook Prize. I got a tattoo. I knew any tattoo for him had to be strange and bright. I also knew it had to be visible, so I could tell people about him when they asked.

Nate's poem 'Flowering Kudzu' encompasses so much of what I love about him and his work. He wasn't afraid to experiment. He wasn't afraid to take risks, embrace the unknown and laugh about it. 'Let's just hope this works, because I've never tried it before.' The result was always weird and beautiful. I don't use those words lightly.

Shortly after watching 'Flowering Kudzu' again, I stumbled on the Burroughs quote 'Language is a virus from outer space.' Whenever I encounter Burroughs now, I associate it with Nate, and it was just natural to connect language and kudzu as invasive aliens . . . it was actually more of a collision than a connection, and that was when the piece really coalesced. I suspected Shawn Dubin at Idle Hands was the right artist for it; confirmed after I messaged him Hey. I want a tattoo of flowering kudzu from outer space incorporated with a Burroughs quote in an alien script. It's a memorial piece for a friend. There's also serious cover work involved. What do you think? and he replied. Sure, send some pics and I'll start sketching.

I chose 'Alienese 1' from Futurama for the lettering because it's stylistically compatible with the kudzu, and I thought Nate might appreciate the irony of an alien virus transmitted via cartoon. Shawn spent hours on the design, and it took two sessions (about seven hours) of actual tattooing, not including stenciling and placement, because it also had to cover three crappy tattoos I thought were bad-ass when I was 18. Shawn was awesome the entire time, which was rough in a few places. The sternum--bony slab that shields the heart—was sore and raw after several hours. I cried--more than once. But the result was worth it. Weird. And beautiful. Like Nate".

Izzy Oneiric is a riddle wrapped in an enigma wrapped in bacon. She holds a BA in Interdisciplinary Studies from the California Institute of Integral Studies and an MFA in Poetry from Columbia College Chicago. Her work has appeared in numerous publications including Raging Pelican, Source Material, South Loop Review and Women Poets Wearing Sweatpants. Her chapbook From the Bombshell Shelter was selected as Main Street Rag's Author's Choice. She currently performs with the New Orleans Poetry Brothel and is working on her third manuscript, a collage of texts published before 1940, an excerpt of which appears below.

Reunited, but Only for One is That Tragic

Two arms can openly nail the heart.

There is space provided for you here. There is a splendid panoramic view. In order to precipitate the tragedy, a gold disc by the sun, more powerful than love, will fill the whole boat and crush us like lizards.
To sink the boat.

In the picture of my thought, the freshness of the dizzying water, a fetid seagull released whipping black rocks. Most sweet consolation.

Discovered in the pocket of my jacket:

A narrow pestle.
A leather God.
Fourteen stories.
A bubbling rose.

~ ~ ~

Thanks to Izzy for coming back to us here on the Tattooed Poets Project on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2015 Tattoosday. The poem and tattoo are reprinted with the poet's permission.

If you are reading this on another web site other than Tattoosday, without attribution, please note that it has been copied without the author's permission and is in violation of copyright laws. Please feel free to visit http://tattoosday.blogspot.com and read our original content. Please let me know if you saw this elsewhere so I contact the webmaster of the offending site and advise them of this violation in their Terms of Use Agreement.

The Tattooed Poets Project: J. Fossenbell

Occasionally poets tell me they'll send other poets my way, should they come across interesting tattoos. I had asked Martha Collins if she had tattoos and, although she answered in the negative, she surprised me with an email last month, telling me she had just read in Hanoi (!) with J. Fossenbell and she recommended her for the Tattooed Poets Project.

Well, I reached out to Ms. Fossenbell, she replied, "Yes, Martha mentioned this to me and I love the concept." She added, "There's a close conceptual connection between poetry and tattoos, in terms of making/leaving a mark, somatic language." I absolutely love what she had to say about her tattoo, which is pictured below.

About the tattoo:

"I got this tattoo in Hanoi, just before moving back to the U.S. after living there for a few years. It's a West African symbol of humility called a Dwennimmen, resembling ram's horns because it is said that the ram submits itself without a fight once cornered or bested in the hunt. I wanted to wear a visible sign to remind me of the legacy of hubris that I inherited as a citizen of a privileged and imperial nation; living overseas among international communities showed me just how pervasive my learned attitudes of entitlement and superiority could be, if not countered with conscious and constant re-education. 

Anyway, I basically searched for 'symbols of humility' on the web and found this one. I thought it looked cool, and I liked the origin. The irony of this was lost on me at the time. I picked a tiny tattoo shop in a tiny alley in Hanoi that had some good reviews, but the ink must've been low quality, or maybe the artist fucked it up somehow, but almost immediately after healing, it had this unusually blotchy, uneven appearance. Initially I complained and I talked about getting it touched up. But since then I have come to value this lesson. For one thing, lifting traditional symbols from other cultures at random with no personal connection to those cultures or their people is, in itself, a fairly imperial gesture. The embarrassment I feel about this hypocrisy, plus the botched aesthetics of my effort to wear virtue, serve as a daily reminder of precisely what the symbol signifies."

And a poem:

SOUVENIR

God had a dream in which all faces were the same face.

We are a self-terrorist. We are never as authentic as when we dream.

My mask collection watches TV in the living room.

They are tired of wondering what's inside

that shouldn't be. We see everyone we see inside myself,

and this is a crowded nightmare. A Petersbergian midnight

with clowns and suicides, at the speed of white white dark

We see everything. But we are not a seer.

They are tired of sleeping with their clothes on. 

Their speaking embarrasses me.

Why can't I be an old bearded Russian, sincere as wheat.

It all goes back to the conquering bone—

born of the bomb, from safe remove, fortified

by braided epaulettes and the benefits of husbandry. 

We’ve souvenired the world into our apartment.

We are enlarged now, fatter, in the know. 

(But the food was so good (and the manicures so cheap

(though the service was rather poor (impoverished, really))))

We picked up an amazing artifact abroad:

a diminutive human figure, easy to manipulate. But when I squeeze it

it gases noxious, orthodontic clay waiting to be bitten.

Reabsorbs force into its negative.

All words for God are uttered from a single place and manner of articulation.

Are assembled from a hinged cast of mouthparts

and tongueroots squirming under lifted death masks.

The recently deceased will be identified by her dental records.

(It's the only way to be sure (forensics experts say

(faces go away)))

~ ~ ~ 

J. Fossenbell grew up under a juniper tree on a high red mesa. Now she lives, writes, and teaches on the shores of a mighty river on the plains. Her poems can be found at Midway Journal,  Whole Beast Rag, ILK, Radioactive Moat, and elsewhere. Her translations, reviews, and other writings have been seen on The Volta Blog, dislocate, Moonshot Magazine, Parabasis, Delirious Hem, and Cerise Press. 

Thanks to J. Fossenbell for sharing her tattoo and poem with us here on the Tattooed Poets Project on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2015 Tattoosday. The poem and tattoo are reprinted with the poet's permission.

If you are reading this on another web site other than Tattoosday, without attribution, please note that it has been copied without the author's permission and is in violation of copyright laws. Please feel free to visit http://tattoosday.blogspot.com and read our original content. Please let me know if you saw this elsewhere so I contact the webmaster of the offending site and advise them of this violation in their Terms of Use Agreement.

The Tattooed Poets: Chantele Theroux

I'd be remiss if I didn't share this Canadian poet's tattoo:

This is Chantele Theroux, who told us:

"I had my Johnny Cash tattoo done (at Pagan Tattoo of Edmonton in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada by Sean Tracy) to honour the artistry and work Johnny Cash brought to the world. He sung about (and advocated for) the underdog, the prisoner, and very noble but unpopular opinion. He was a rebel with a cause and his life changed mine."

Chantele is the poetry editor for an online publication called Rebelle Society. She sent us the following poem "show me your tattoo," which originally appeared on the site here:

What’s moved you, sailor?

Shaken you,

taken you

to bleed it out through process,

exquisite pleasure and pain…

(I want to know you.)

Because the needles dragging through you,

                                        they carried the ink

                                                                     that dripped the colors

                                                                                   of your hurt and delight

into art…

Now coursing through your veins,

deep inside your body,

beating forever from your heart…

(Your pulse sounds amazing…)

What wounds do you wear?

Or is it joy that you share?

The mystery of milestone

in monument and shrine,

your stained visceral visage,

a chaotic collage,

only you’ll truly see,

and ever know.

(I love your style…)

Because those words, these snapshots,

your times drawn eternal,

these etchings of essence,

show me you’re bold

and you’re raw enough,

to share you with the world.

(I adore your courage..)

Or was it rebellion

a now-faded reminder,

 of youth drunk on juvenile

design and desire,

now your proud symbol of regretful whim.

(Your life’s been gorgeous…)

If you dare, be bare,

hold your scars deep within,

You’ll be nude, never naked,

like many stained souls have been.

Stay closed, picture perfect,

your form in façade…

since diving within,

means  baring your sin,

and not settle for sinking,

but choosing to swim.

(Dead men tell no tales, my dear…)

Because this your life,

your one wonderful, wicked ride,

be it in ink or blank canvas,

no one here gets out alive.

(Pillage and plunder with me?)

~~~

Chantele also pointed us to a Johnny Cash article called "Johnny Cash: Life, Love & the Magic of Being Your Badass Self" that she wrote for the same publication here,

Chantele Theroux is an editor, poet, and writer based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Her works express the resonance of personal creative force driven to reflect the brilliance buried in the dark and shadow of the soul. Reveal the rock 'n' roll of your soul and it will be the exquisite end of life as you know it. Visit her on Facebook or at chanteletheroux.com.

Thanks to Chantele for sharing her cool tattoo with us on Tattoosday's Tattooed Poets Project!

This entry is ©2015 Tattoosday. The poem and tattoo are reprinted with the poet's permission.

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