The Tattooed Poets Project: Steven D. Schroeder

Today's tattooed poet is Steven D. Schroeder, who sent us this photo of one of his three tattoos:

Steven explains about this, and his other two tattoos:

"I have three tattoos. The first is an eye at the base of my neck, which I acquired on a complete whim at the age of about 25 because I decided I should have a tattoo. I liked the design, but people frequently can't tell what it is, and the color washed out a little because I didn't yet know how to care for a tattoo. The second is a brain tattoo on my left shoulder. Shortly after I got that tattoo, I knew I would need a third, because I am obsessive-compulsively symmetrical about some things, and it drove me crazy to have only one shoulder marked. So this skull is on my right shoulder. Both the brain and skull came from a shop in Colorado Springs called R-U Tattooed, which I recommend."

Here's a "crisper" look:

Steven sent us this poem, whose title, he admits, he "stole" from "Autumn Begins in Martin's Ferry, Ohio," by James Wright:

Their Sons Grow Suicidally

Beautiful isn’t spoken aloud.

This Paxil lacks the overdose

Of those backseat lovers cold and cloud,

This nude bed’s not yet said screw yourself

Up to stick the point of the pen

In psychiatry’s eye, this dad adopts

Friend nicknames that amputate the end,

This laboratory test job offers options

Of food or shock from the buzzer button.

Eat that and shit and laminate

Paper tattooed with blueprints and batter

Your limbic system with bottles and sleep

Interrupted. They call it getting better.

~ ~ ~

Steven D. Schroeder’s first book of poetry is Torched Verse Ends (BlazeVOX [books]). 

His poems are available or forthcoming from Pleiades, The Journal, Copper Nickel, Sou’wester, and The Rumpus. He edits the online poetry journal Anti-, serves as a contributing editor for River Styx, and works as a Certified Professional Résumé Writer.

This entry is ©2011 Tattoosday. The poem is reprinted here with the permission of the author.

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: Karla Linden

Today's tattooed poet just missed the boat last year, contacting me after the month had already filled up. So, technically, Karla Linden, has waited the longest to see her contribution make it into the Tattooed Poets Project. Check out what she has offered up:

Well worth the wait, if you ask me!

Karla explains:

"This tattoo is a sacred symbol called a 'Hamsa' or 'Hand of Miriam' - it is traditionally for protection and also as a reminder of the five senses, melding in to a Sixth Sense.  Richie Castillo of Time Bomb Tattoo in San Antonio, Texas did it for me in June of 2010, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where I live."

We've had several hamsa on Tattoosday before, but this one is certainly the most colorful and vibrant!

Karla also contributed this poem:

For the Further Progression of Literary Domination

* * * * * *

"Bind her wrists with
typewriter ribbons

and

tattoo
Anais Nin
quotes on
her thighs."

Blindfolded,
they pull you down
on the bed

newsprint laid out
underneath you

and

the needle
buzzes.

Words form on flesh in between the silence:

Dreams are necessary to life.

then

Each contact with a human being is so rare,
so precious,
one should preserve it. 

in Courier typeface,
letter by letter

You wish this dream would never end,
that
the pressure of her hands,
her mouth on yours
and
the hot tattoo needle
raising a welt
with each stroke
would go on 'til dawn.

~ ~ ~

Karla Linden, NMT, LMT (www.KarlaLinden.com) is a writer and massage therapist, living in New Mexico. She has over 130 hours "under the needle" and is both a tattoo and poetry enthusiast.

 
"Grinding Ink" and "Which Makes Me Love Her Even More", 2 of her poetry books, came out in 2010.  She always has plans for more poems, and more tattoos.

Thanks so much to Karla for her patience, her poetry, and her tattoo! We appreciate your contribution here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2011 Tattoosday. The poem is reprinted here with the permission of the author.

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: Joy Leftow

Today's tattooed poet is Joy Leftow, who offers up this tattoo on her upper right arm (and part of her shoulder):

Joy explains the story behind this tattoo:

The tattoo is my alter ego - not only Eminem has one. I had a very tumultuous and crazy childhood, so that I ended up dropping out of high school is no surprise. What is a surprise is that I now have 2 masters degrees, 1 in social work from Columbia, where I also attended undergrad for free in a special program geared towards helping the educationally and financially disadvantaged....out of the 11 people I began the program with, only me and one other gal made it through to graduation. Thus the importance of books in the tattoo, which represent knowledge and learning. I was always an avid reader and this turned to be my saving grace. But Columbia is a bitch and very competitive and wasn't exactly easy for a high school dropout. My other masters is in creative writing and is from CCNY, because once you're a working person, nothing is free, and CCNY is affordable. I'm very sorry to see the days of opportunities for the disadvantaged pass by and now one must work hard to find any remaining ones.

Myke Maldonado from Dreamland Creations [in Stroudsburg, PA] is my inker. Myke is famous for torturing people so that your ink will last forever. He also has some fame as a comic book illustrator and for his erotic art comics. I chose him because my son is totally inked by Myke. I know that Myke sits and takes his time to make the creation a by product of dialogue and collaboration. If he wouldn't have moved his ass around the country so much, he'd be a lot more famous. You can't find a better or more responsive inker. Love Myke!

Joy offers us this poem:

Ramblings Of A Dead Poet Revived

I’m your dream that drama queen you wanna be because you’re too damn scared on your own

so you talk about me –

My life shot and framed at every angle, a show and tell story of gory glory

A fit of reality TV evening drama

Me, an item to be discussed while you pine away

dismay pitted against your boring display of ridicule and scorn

a fine young thing wasted by the sideline of fate

a doorstep away

from where I stand

another miserable life invites me in

inciting an indictment in flight with a slight itch on the right side

another spiteful blight, pitiful, truly a fight to recite in the red light district of my mind

be polite do a rewrite be an anchor of light at first sight, sit tight

stay upright, only a bit contrite that my

knight in shining armor is all in my head

I have a legal right so join me in breaking bread maybe

Tempt you to try a

glass of organic Oregon Chardonnay instead

my life can’t be that exciting that you spend your time wondering when I do what I do and how I do it why do you care about my theatre life on the big screen

my life’s a Sartre amphitheatre

play and I am the spectre at the center of the fuss

I reminisce I exist

the bliss a swiss-chocolate kiss amiss to a soul kiss

the calypso discussion

I disinvite you to an airtight conclusion

~  ~ ~

In addition, we have an additional vision of Joy performing one of her poems:

Joy Leftow is a double alumna from Columbia U with a second Master’s from CCNY in creative writing. Her blog has over 27000 facebook followers and can be relished at: http://joyleftowsblog.blogspot.com. She’s been featured on Rockland Internet Radio, Indie Feed, Jazz Poetry Café and Everything Goes. Leftow’s honesty and openness may astonish you or embarrass you, but she promises not to bore you. Her book, A Spot of Bleach, is available at Amazon.

Thanks to Joy for sharing her tattoo and her words with us here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2011 Tattoosday. The poem is reprinted here with the permission of the author.

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: Puma Perl

It is with great pleasure that we present another tattooed poet, Puma Perl. She offered up this beautiful tattoo:

Tattoo by Emma Griffiths, Photo by Stas Nuke

We'll let Puma talk about this great piece:

"Everything of importance in my life has involved Coney Island. As the developers moved in and the city became more and more a playground for wealthy transplants, I knew I wanted to pay homage with a tattoo. I love the Mermaid Parade and the Wonder Wheel, so envisioned a mermaid with the Wonder Wheel in the background. A friend of mine happened to give me a magnet that she had bought at Lola Starr on the boardwalk (http://www.lolastar.com/) and I used that as the basic shape, changing the tattoo on the mermaid’s arm to a tiny replica of one of mine. I’d wanted to add my eyeglasses, but it was too tiny a detail. I contacted the amazing Emma Griffiths, Porcupine Tattoo, 31 Norman Avenue, Greenpoint, Brooklyn, and made an appointment for a consultation. I brought the magnet and a photo of the Wonder Wheel and we collaborated. Emma drew our vision of the Wonder Wheel in the background and modeled her mermaid on the magnet."

Puma, as is the custom, also shared a poem. She commented that her poem is "about the Mermaid Parade, which also mentions Cha Cha’s, which was slated to be torn down but was recently granted one last season, along with 8 other unofficial Boardwalk landmarks." She also noted that "this poem was previously published in the Coney Island Examiner, along with several other poems about Coney Island." You can read all of them here.

The Best Day of the Year

We hung out on the roof at Cha Cha’s

watching the Mermaid Parade.

This is my favorite day of the year,

said Danny, snapping pictures

with a camera recently lifted

from the trunk of a Buick.

They need Mambo Mermaids

I said, as Zombie Mermaids,

and Vampire Mermaids

sauntered by. He ignored me,

entranced by glittery pasties

and hundreds of tits.

I had met Danny at the Siren Festival.

You can be my Coney Island Baby

was the first thing he told me,

while the New York Dolls played.

We danced straight down Surf Avenue,

all the way to Seagate where he rented

a room from a bunch of rabbis.

We’d been together almost a year.

You don’t need calendars on the boardwalk,

time is measured by cyclone screams,

sideshows, and wooden horses,

by two shadows on the sand,

by memories of striped chairs,

and thunderbolt rides.

We climbed down the stairs.

Danny tried to steal an antique car

but nobody took him seriously.

Coney Island kids paraded in wigs

left behind by drunken mermaids,

who now littered the street,

pasties lost, and breasts drooping.

This is the best day of the year,

said Danny, as we drank warm beer

and headed towards the after- parties.

We were never invited, but it was the best

day of the year, and we weren’t worried

about a thing.

© puma perl, 4/13/09

~ ~ ~

I want to interject that this poem coincidentally hearkens back to a very fortuitous day in the history of Tattoosday. For it was on July 21, 2007, when I attended the Siren Festival, the same day mentioned in the poem, when the first seeds of the Tattoosday concept began to sprout in my brain. For it was on that day, when we saw the New York Dolls, that I spotted a Keith Haring tattoo and started to connect the idea of asking about someone's tattoo, and blogging about it. Ten days later, the first Tattoosday post came to life. My recap of that day in Coney Island is recapped here, on BillyBlog. 

Puma Perl is a NYC-based writer, performance artist, and curator. Her poetry and fiction have been published in over 100 print and online journals and anthologies. 

She is the author of the award-winning chapbook, Belinda and Her Friends, and a full length collection, knuckle tattoos. 

She lives and writes on the Lower East Side and has facilitated writing workshops in community based agencies and at Riker’s Island, a NYC prison. She is a founding member of DDAY Productions, which presents poetry and performance events. Link to her blog for info about book purchases and events: http://pumaperl.blogspot.com/.

Thanks to Puma for sharing her awesome tattoo and poem here on Tattoosday, on the Tattooed Poets Project! Remember, all contributors, including those from 2009 and 2010, are indexed here.

This entry is ©2011 Tattoosday. The poem is reprinted here with the permission of the author.

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: Lorraine Conlin

Today's tattooed poet is Lorraine Conlin, one of several Long Island wordsmiths featured this month on the Tattooed Poets Project.

Lorraine offers up this beautiful tattoo on the upper right side of her back:

Photo courtesy of Lorraine Conlin

Lorraine gives us the background of this lovely La:

"My first and only tattoo (so far), was self-designed with a bit of enhancement by Syxx, of Wyld Chyld Tattoo in Merrick, NY, where I co-host poetry events in their adjoining café.  La is the Lilliputianized form of my original nickname, Lala.  Before I said Mama or Dada, as most babies do, I uttered Lala and from that day forward, my family referred to me as their “little Lala”. 

Photo courtesy of Lorraine Conlin

The name stayed with me and friends and business associates starting calling me “La”.  While hosting the open mic at Wyld Chyld Tattoo & Café, I met Syxx, (Raymond Obrien) who is with the Metal Group, “The Saints of Pain”.  He signed up to read one night and read something he had written.  We started talking and I asked if I had any ink.  I told him I was afraid of infection and I was allergic to lots of foods and meds. He asked me which ones and when I said sulfur, he said I could get any colors except yellow or any that had yellow in their composition.  He was so reassuring, knowledgeable and gentle that I went home that night and started thinking about what to get and where I wanted it.  I sketched it out and brought him the sketch.  We made a date, he made the stencil and the rest is history."

Lorraine was kind enough to share this poem with us: 

A Wannabe Fantasy

I told my shrink I wannabe a back warmer

sit on a bitch pad behind a biker guy

wrap my arms round his ape-hanger grip

straddle his bar-hopper bike on Friday nights

ride with a big bearded chromosexual guy

cruise the big road to nowhere…

I wanna goggle the horizon -- eat asphalt

let my puppies hang loose

wear black leather chaps

and a purple skid lid

“I don’t think you do.” He said

Yes, I do

I love bikers

especially the B.U.G.s

the bigger, uglier the guy

the harder they try

the better they make me feel

told him I rode hard and long with a few

before these confession sessions

He said. “We have to stop now.”

I found a new therapist

she loves to listen

to my biker-chick fantasies

rides along with me

always asks

“How does that make you feel”…

~ ~ ~

Lorraine Conlin is a US Customs Broker at JFK Airport. She is on the BOD of The Long Island Poetry Collective, hosts “Tuesdays With Poetry” for Poets in Nassau, and co-hosts for PerformancePoets Association at Wyld Chyld Tattoo & Café in Merrick, LINY. Her work has been published in PPA Literary Review(s), LongIsland Sounds Anthology(s).  Lorraine initiated and hosts Super Poem Sunday, where folks gather to celebrate the sport of poetry on Super Bowl Sunday.  She is also the founder of the Long Island Poets for Darfur.  Lorraine is currently working on her first book of poems.

Thanks to Lorraine for sharing her tattoo and poem with us here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2011 Tattoosday. The poem is reprinted here with the permission of the author.

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: Nescher Pyscher

Today's tattooed poet is named Nescher Pyscher and hails from Cambridge, Ohio.

Nescher offered  up his right wrist for us here at Tattoosday:

Photo courtesy of Nescher Pyscher

Nescher explains:

"The tattoo was done in two parts. The first part was my wife's name in Chinese, surrounded by an infinity symbol. It was my wedding present for her. I designed the tattoo myself, and I was inspired to do so by a ink-stamper-thing-y my wife's father brought home for her from China. The second part, my son's name, was my wife's Christmas present to me when our son was born. I do not remember the name of the tattoo studios or the artists, but both tats were procured in the Akron, Ohio area."

As a matter of clarification, I asked Nescher about the kanji representing his wife's name. He told me that the "three symbols mean--so I've been told--'Mother,' 'Earth' and 'Love.' " He added that she is a geologist, by occupation.

Photo courtesy of Nescher Pyscher

As for his son's name, Geir, he clarified that his name means Spear, which is Icelandic or Norwegian, in origin. Nescher added that "names with value and freighted with meaning are important in my family. He is the strong weapon in my right hand, the spear we cast into the future."

As for a poem, Nescher, offered up this piece:

dustbitten

i plant the seed of myself within myself--

mutated, cloned, half-life-whole that

gropes toward darkening life--

and watch the poisoned weed of me grow.

i am the frozen feathers of a bird in flight,

locked to dead tree, dying in estrous,

decayed in birth, and forgotten before the wind

could sweep through feathers.

i am eye,

i am face,

i am ear

i am the frozen corpse at the bottom of the well

leaking into life; oozing into being;

draining into dream and desire

i am fist

i am nail

i am bent, broken finger

i water the tumors of me with the salt of my tears

the iron tang of my blood,

the sweet toxin of my urine.

i am teeth

i am tongue

i am busily working lips

i eat my flesh, taken straight from crippled vine

and wince at the taste of my self-inflicted pain,

juices running unchecked down my pocked and hairless

chin

i am blister

i am burn

i am wounded, weeping sore

my madness drives me, sings inside me

and keeps me warm

the feel of meeting teeth on my broken skin feels

like warm rain in the evening;  

sun setting on life forever

i am stone

i am flesh

i am dust

 ~ ~ ~

Nescher Pyscher--his real name. Honest!--is a happily married, thirty-five year old author and poet living, writing and staying at home with his son in the Cambridge, Ohio area. His writing can be found at Weebly.com, Helium.com, Pablo Lennis, and his book of short stories, Itchy Whispers, is now available from Trafford or Amazon.com. His adventures in ineptitude with his son, The Pants, can be read twice weekly at The Daily Jeffersonian.  

Thanks to Nescher for sharing his tattoos and his poetry with us here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2011 Tattoosday. The poem is reprinted here with the permission of the author.

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: Sue Swartz

Today's tattooed poet, Sue Swartz, hails from Bloomington, Indiana, and offers up her forearm for all the world to see:

Photo by John Narmontas

Sue explains:

This is a 2-part tattoo story. On my 54^th birthday, I had the Hebrew word for truth (emet) imprinted on my right (i.e., writing) forearm in traditional black Torah script. I wanted a useful reminder for my art; also the word contains one letter that is a stand-in for life/God and two others that spell out the word “dead”. Okay, it was a little heavy. Two years later, this past November, when I couldn’t take looking at the damn truth anymore, Dina Verplank of Voluta Tattoo in Indianapolis beautified the baldness of the lone word with a branch from the Tree of Life and a spiral/root system.

Photo by John Narmontas

 And Sue offers up this poem:

MID-LIFE

Damn. Another 3 a.m. flying dream.

This time I’m on a cement slab hurtling toward over-grown lawns

covered with large plastic pigs and spiked coat hangers.

This is not what normal people dream.

Awake, I tilt (normal, not normal) on a giant seesaw of guilt

by association and realize:

I might not really know what normal is—

My dead – crazy bastards every one – left far too many clues,

though not one legible note of navigational instruction.

Minds overtaken by spirals and whirligigs, Greek letters

and the rising price of toilet paper, they wore the warp & weave

of their affliction stoically.

Seamlessly, one might say, and with understated finesse.

Running off to Florida on a Tuesday-morning whim:

In the realm of normal.

Snapped-on pills for breakfast:

Mildly normal.

Washing, washing again, again, again. Refusing to shake

the hand of strangers:

Undeniably normal (well, yeah – you never know

who’s got what).

With garments torn & heads made bare, they bob in and out

of traffic, sit close to me in restaurants, carefully chewing

with their electrode mouths.

My dead have secrets. That much is abundantly clear.

I listen for whispers of their generous madness, find

they’ve come while I’m asleep. Bad timing is all I’ve got.

That, and fingerprints left on the towels.

No, I don’t shush them away: then I’d lose the true nature

of everything. If I don’t know what normal is, why not

claim these people as kin?

How else to name my own impurities and small derangements?

~ ~ ~

Sue Swartz is a poet, hired-gun-political writer, amateur ballroom dancer, favored grandparent, social justice activist, occasional yogini, and creator of alternative Jewish ritual. Her work has been published in Cutthroat Magazine, Lilith, 5 a.m., SmartishPace, and elsewhere. She wishes she had a book you could buy. You can find her blog Awkward Offerings at http://swartzsue.wordpress.com/. She makes her home in Bloomington, Indiana and believes that Leviticus (You are not to make gashes in your flesh for the dead nor incise marks on yourself.) goes a bit overboard.

Thanks to Sue for sharing her truthful tattoo with us here on Tattoosday! 

This entry is ©2011 Tattoosday. The poem is reprinted here with the permission of the author.

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: Noemi Soto

Today's tattooed poet is Noemi Soto, who sent us this lovely, colorful photo of her tattoo:

Photo Courtesy of Noemi Soto

Noemi explains:

"I designed the tattoo for myself during a pretty rough period after a major breakup about 6 years ago. I wanted it to represent the heartbreak that I was feeling at the time but still hold hope for the future. The artist who tattooed me was Danielle Distefano while she was working out of Dare DevilTattoo on Ludlow Street in Manhattan."

Danielle is currently tattooing out of Only You Tattoo in Atlanta, Georgia.

Noemi offers up this poem:

The Beginning is the End is the Beginning

Back when I was younger
My mother tried to protect my heart
Always telling me to never bare my insides for a man
to never let him in fully so that he may devour what I hold dear
to not let a man do to me what had been done to her

Her backbone used to show signs of strength but now lacks the stamina to withstand the battle
She was once a woman so strong in her will
but with every man in her life taking pieces of her for themselves
she has now become a mere shell of herself
The stink of her childhood still lingering in her hair

I was witness to the tug of war my father and her used to play
saw the push and pull of their hearts
there was nothing unconditional about their love
not even when it came to me
there is nothing sentimental and heartfelt in the throwing of pots, pans and fists
“I love you” cannot be said through the gnashing of one’s teeth

So when it came time for my will to be tested
I acted on what I saw and not what I was told
What I was shown was that to be a woman meant having to bend your spine so far back to please your man that you broke yourself in two
To stretch those parts of yourself out so that you may give him the smoothest of surfaces in which he may stomp your hopes and dreams into
To ignore his faults and accept them as your own
How dare you even think otherwise?

I was taught that… to be a woman meant having to pick up the pieces that were left behind from his war path
making sure only your feet bled in the process to save his
Being a woman always meant never asking any questions
to let him roam and if he comes back … well… what more do you want?

I followed all of these lessons very carefully
made sure I folded the laundry just right
had dinner ready when he came home
and always made sure to give him his space
only to find myself face down on the floor, arms pinned behind me, with all of his weight pressing his right knee into my back
I waited until he left the room to get up

I stayed in silence
still willing to be the woman behind the man
Still willing to be the glass which he slammed his fist against
shattering any sense of self worth I had just for him
I began to wonder if this really was what it meant to be a woman or just the kind of woman who was so lost in herself that she was willing to let a man tell her what she should be
and if it did …. Then I had to learn to become my own woman
and I couldn’t do that by being underneath his thumb

So I bent back each one of his fingers till they snapped at the joints to show him how serious I was
It was the only way to break free
and while he screamed in pain and cursed me for having been born

I cleared a way for myself through the broken home which I was sure would last forever
letting him know that he no longer had a hold on me

~~~

Noemi Soto is a Brooklyn, New York native who was born and raised in Coney Island and is a recent transplant to Queens. Her poetry has been featured in a variety of publications such as The Acentos Review, The Literary Burlesque, LitUp Magazine & South Jersey Underground. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee and is currently working on her first book. You can read more of her work  at her website here.

Thanks to Noemi for her contribution to the Tattooed Poets Project!

This entry is ©2011 Tattoosday. The poem is reprinted here with the permission of the author.

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: Stephen Roger Powers

Today's tattooed poet is Stephen Roger Powers, who is sharing this tattoo of an iconic figure from the music industry:

Photo by James Morton

Stephen explains:

I've been a Dolly Parton fan since my family took a road trip to Tennessee in 1987.  We stopped at Dollywood, and I fell in love.  When I was in college I wanted a Dolly tattoo, but I never went through with getting one.  I kept the thought of it in the back of my mind for years, and when I started writing poems about Dolly and my frequent trips to Dollywood to see her perform benefit concerts for the Dollywood Foundation, the idea slowly crept forward again.  Then my book of Dolly poems came out in 2009, and I knew it would soon be time.  One day last year my friend Liz, who has 14 tattoos herself, told me to stop thinking about it, stop talking about it, and just do it.  Sounded reasonable to me.  So Liz drove me to Liberty Tattoo in Atlanta and introduced me to Michael "Shack" Shackelford, the artist who'd done most of hers.  Shack drew up a stylized, cartoonized version of Dolly from the cover of her 1977 album Here You Come Again, taking some creative license by adding pokey nipples, which was fine with me.

Liz kept saying she wasn't going to let me back out of it now that she'd driven me there and gotten pulled over for an illegal u-turn on the way, so Shack sat me down, we got started, and today I have Dolly Parton inked on my forearm.  While the tattoo is based on a full body shot of Dolly and it runs down my entire right forearm from elbow to wrist, the photo here is a close-up of just her face and torso, which I think makes Shack's details easier to see.

Accompanying this Dolly tattoo is Stephen's poem, "Dolly and the Frog Strangler," which appeared originally in Shenadoah and can be found in his book The Follower's Tale (available here):

Dolly and the Frog Strangler

I was writing a song with Dolly when we ran out of gas

near exit 201 going south through a sudden downpour in Indiana.

The first verse was something about how hay bales grow

darker in the rain and the sides of barns turn from red to brown.

We were also hauling a Dolly Parton pinball machine by Bally.

The backglass was in the backseat. The playfield, with rubber

flippers intact, cartoon Dolly barefoot in denim shorts, was too big to go

in the trunk all the way.  It hung over the bumper by bungee cords.  Every bump,

my worn-out shocks groaned and banged like rickety roller coasters.

We waited for a trucker to bring us a gallon.  Hail popped on the roof

like too many warped records playing at the same time.  We were bored,

looking for ways to amuse ourselves.  Dolly tapped her dragon lady nails

on the dashboard.  I used my sleeve to wipe away windshield fog.

After we hummed a middle C we wrote the second verse,

something about long hair between your lips and mountain berry shampoo

scent in your nose when you kiss someone in the wind.

We rolled down the windows to let the storm heat evaporate

some of the air conditioning.  Dolly’s wig got tangled and wet.

The strangest thing was happening: The pinball machine

kept flashing hot pink and lavender.

Maybe lightning hit the cord trailing behind.  Or else something lit it

up from our mind’s eye that saw corn tassels rolling in this gully washer

over the fields as applauding hands of cheering crowds.

Our chorus was something about how you look out

your rearview mirror and it’s still visible after a mile

passes, maybe two if the countryside is flat, but then it fades

away and is gone, and you can’t remember anymore what mile

marker it was by when you passed it.

 ~~~

Stephen Roger Powers is the author of TheFollower's Tale, available from Salmon Poetry.  His work has appeared in Shenandoah, 32 Poems, Dislocate, and Margie.  He divides his time between Wisconsin, Georgia, and Dollywood.

A sincere thanks to Stephen for sharing his poem, tattoo and his love of Dolly Parton here with us on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2011 Tattoosday. The poem is reprinted here with the permission of the author.

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: Martha Serpas

On this, our fourth day of the third annual Tattooed Poets Project, we are honored to have work from Martha Serpas.

Readers may wonder where we find all these tattooed poets. Most come our way by word of mouth, but a small handful, like in Martha's case, agree to participate after we send out e-mail inquiries, without even knowing if a poet is inked or not. Most poets don't even respond, a handful do, but are not tattooed, and once in a blue moon, we find a tattooed poet who is happy to participate.

Anyway, here's one of Martha's tattoos:

Martha explains:

This tattoo is a montage over 20 or so years in the making. First work, Willie [at Willie's Island Tattoos] on Staten Island; Dan [Williams at the Bridgeport Tattoo Shop] in Bridgeport, CT; Bonnie Jean in Yachats, OR at [Tattoo by Design]; and a guy in Houston I never should have let reline it. Bonnie Jean was is old school and taught me that tattooing is like coloring in a book: anybody can do it if the lines are really thick.

The tattoo’s a chronicle of a tumultuous time in my life. The wind/water symbol (my design) traversing the image was first. It felt like a spiritual emblem. The bird represents a goal of peace (brought it in from somewhere). The moliere/Celtic cross  (graphic artist friend, Carla Januska designed) is modeled after the one on the chapel at my divinity school and doubles as a setting sun. It is my graduation ring, of sorts. The feathery flame shapes (Bonnie Jean’s freehand) within the wings and tail came last—my attempt to soften up the image when my life became more tranquil.

I have a small tattoo on my ankle that precedes this one(s); a memorial to my best friend on my thigh; a reverse hurricane symbol on my thumb (post-Katrina); and a symbol of perichoresis (divine revolution) on my forearm. I’ve been told I look like a doodle pad. I get tattooed about every 5 years. If I ever become content with life, I’ll stop trying to achieve the ideal personal emblem. For now, I doodle.

•••••••

Martha also contributed the following poem which, she explained, "was inspired by a photograph on the cover of Tattoo."  One note, Martha adds, is that "Suzanne owned the shop in Ann Arbor where I got my first ankle tattoo: Creative Tattoo by Suzanne. Great T-shirt: Go forth and live as art. I heard she passed away: Her breast piece was amazing."

Tattoo

She knows being chosen means to choose herself

and seals upon her breasts the Sacred Heart—

a thorn-bound garnet against open lilies,

a pink-and-white ink triptych on her chest.

Every shadow, a creed professed by lines

from votive needles to her deepest cells.

Her body gives life to art, reflects the fade

of dying flesh, and honors God’s design.

No second thoughts, she thinks that pain

is easily a choice we make ourselves,

as is admiring her canvas skin

as it ages. Affirmed with words spelled

on a defiant ribbon across her chest,

her blazón: Even the blackest sheep are blessed.

            [Appeared in Côte Blanche (New Issues, 2002)]

•••••••

Martha Serpas’s two collections of poetry are Côte Blanche (New Issues, 2002) and The Dirty Side of the Storm (Norton, 2007). Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Nation, and Southwest Review, and in anthologies such as Bearing the Mystery: Twenty Years of Image and the Library of America’s American Religious Poems. A native of Bayou Lafourche in south Louisiana, she is involved in efforts to restore Louisiana’s wetlands. She teaches creative writing at the University of Houston and is a hospital trauma chaplain.

You can learn more about Martha and her writing at her website, http://www.marthaserpas.com/.

A sincere thanks to Martha for sharing her tattoo and poem with us here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2011 Tattoosday. The poem is reprinted here with the permission of the author.

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.