Amazing New Site! Check Out Fellowship Supply!

Last month I reviewed the amazing book Skin Graf, co-written by Michael "Kaves" McLeer and Billy Burke. Revisit the review here.

The day after my review appeared, I was fortunate enough to attend a talk about the book and graffiti tattoo, I met several of the artists featured in the book, and also had a chance to speak to both authors, including Billy Burke.

We resumed our conversation several days later when Kaves held a book-release party at his shop in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn Made Tattoo.

Burke told me about his latest project, working with Fellowship Supply Company, "Purveyors Of Creative Tools For The Tattoo Artist."

He urged me to check out the website here, and spoke with great excitement about Fellowship's vision, embodied in this statement:

"Fellowship exists to promote craftsmanship while furthering the artistry of the tattoo community. We honor the dedication of artists before us through dedication of our own, shunning shortcuts in favor of sacrifice. For those who find joy in creating, the role of a maker is a life, not a living. In the art of tattooing, we blur lines between timelessness and mortality, between skin and canvas, between outcast and visionary."

Aside from a whole section of tattoo supplies, there is a lot of great content featuring the words, wisdom, and talent of some of the greatest tattooists and machine builders working today, like Freddy Negrete, Mark Mahoney and Timmy Tatts, to name just a few.

An amazing back piece by Timmy Tatts

Work by Mark Mahoney

Detail of a machine part by Dan Dringenberg

And check out this tutorial clip from Negrete on the art of black and grey:

That's just the tip of the iceberg.

Tattoo artists, aficionados, and fans can get lost in the site, which just launched in the last two weeks. I can hardly wait to see what other rare treats visitors to the site will be getting in the future.

I'm looking forward to seeing how Fellowship grows and expands its amazing collection of articles, biographies, and tutorials. Readers should certainly bookmark this site for exploration in the weeks and months to come!

This entry is ©2013 Tattoosday.

If you are seeing this on another website 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.

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DOODLES.

I have been so busy lately in between tattooing and working on designs for D9 Reserve. That's why when I have a chance to draw, it's either free handing things on skin or doodling on whatever stands in front of me. Here is some characters I drew with a ball point pen on some brown paper bags. I'm going to try to do more of them so I can build up a  collection and one never knows do a little art show.

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Tattoosday in Massachusetts: Ariel and Her F-Holes

On our way back to New York after a brief stint in Boston, we stopped in Northampton to visit our friends, Anne and Liz.

At their house, I met their friend Ariel.

At one point in the conversation, I asked Ariel if she played the violin.

Initially, she looked surprised that I would ask, but I pointed to the tattoo on her inner forearm, which had tipped me off:

Ariel explained that these are, indeed, representative of a violin's sound holes, commonly referred to as the "F holes." She elaborated:

"I play the violin. I love violin music and fiddle music and this is exactly where, if you h0ld the violin ... if the sun were shining through ... the violin,  I feel it would pierce right there, while you were playing ... It's just a good spot that always reminds me of it, but it's also not very visible and ... these are abstractions of it, they're not perfect, I drew them myself. They're not traced from an actual violin."

Ariel had this tattoo done at Lucky's Tattoo & Piercing in Northampton.

Thanks to Ariel for sharing her musical tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2013 Tattoosday.

If you are seeing this on another website 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.

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Star...

One of the samhain shots again, a dream became true...
Thanks again to Christina: h2fotografie.blogspot.com

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Die Niedertracht Gottes (Loki Tattoo)

 This is Loki, the malicious one, depicted here in classic viking age weaving with his mouth sewn shut, perfest solution for people, who talk too much bullshit...

...and off course Fenriz, his son and one of the great beasts, in his mouth he has the hand of Tyr, the god of justice and war.
This is just a part of a whole tigh design, wich will contain at the end Loki and his offspring.
As you can see, it's still work in progress...

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Tattoo Convention Faroe Islands

As you can see, hairy me will be at the Tattoo Convention at the Faroe Islands, look forward to be out there with you, guys:)

Check out the website: http://www.fotattfest.com/

See you...

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Copenhagen Ink Festival

Off course we will participate in the Copenhagen Ink Festival, come by, say hallo and if you have a nice piece from me hop on stage and show it :)

Check out the website: http://www.inkfest.dk/

Vi ses...

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Michelle Shares A Pin-Up Modeled After Her Passion for Pool

Last month I was hanging out with some friends at a bar called Niles across the street from Madison Square Garden.

It was a gathering of old work friends, actually, and my friend Brooke (who last appeared on Tattoosday here) and her husband were going to Eric Clapton's Crossroads Festival concert at MSG.

At some point in the evening, I spotted a woman near the front of the bar, standing with several people, including a gentleman wearing a jacket from the Buddy Guy band.

What jumped out at me, however, was the tattoo on the woman's left calf. As she was leaving the bar, I approached her and was thrilled when she agreed to let me photograph her work:

When I asked her why the woman on her calf was holding a pool cue and an eight ball, she explained that she was a competitive pool player.

It turns out I was talking to Michelle Hughes, a member of the Northwest Women's Pool Association and their 2009 Rookie of the Year.

Michelle Hughes in action, from Flickr

The tattoo was inked by Paula Hathaway at Industry Tattoo in Bellingham, Washington.

Thanks to Michelle for sharing this cool pin-up with us here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2013 Tattoosday.

If you are seeing this on another website 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.

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Japanese TATTOO Horimitsu Style step by step!!!

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Japanese TATTOO Horimitsu Style A customer from Sweden!!!!

Thank you for coming always! see you again soon.

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The Return of Saturday Links

It has been a while since we posted about the tattoo-related items we browsed on the web over the last week, so here's a few to whet your weekend appetite.

One of those not-so-often-discussed benefits for getting tattooed?

It's easier for the authorities to identify your body, like this John Doe whose ink helped the powers-that-be identify him. Full story here.

The Department of the Medical Examiner (Hawaii) released a photo of an eagle or phoenix tattoo found on the body of a man recovered from the ocean off Sand Island Thursday morning. (Courtesy Department of the Medical Examiner)

~ ~ ~

On the flip side, if you get a unicorn tattooed on your butt, you might still be regretting it thirty+ years later, as this writer recounts in the New York Times here. Thanks to Marisa at Needles and Sins for pointing that gem out to me. There's no photo, but if you're jonesing for one, it might look like this:

Or perhaps not, but you can see more like that one on Holy Taco's gallery of 30 Awesomely Bad Unicorn Tattoos.

Then again, Buzzfeed always rocks out with their awesome lists, like this one I saw late Friday: "47 Cringeworthy Tattoos Being Regretted As We Speak" here.

~ ~ ~

The big news this week in New York was Rapid Realty's promise to give significant raises to any employee who got their logo tattooed on them. 

via CBS

Read about the deal here (among others).

~ ~ ~

And my favorite link of the week came from those mammoth sources of all thing tattoo, Inked Magazine.

Among other goodies, they feature "The Best Tattoos in Movies Ever" in three parts. One of my favorites:

Gotta love those Blues Brothers!

That should whet your appetites for the weekend!

This entry is ©2013 Tattoosday.

If you are seeing this on another website 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.

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LATE NIGHT.

Jeff came from New Jersey to start a half sleeve. I was really happy with the ideas he bought to the table as we managed to come up with a really strong, meaningful piece. I enjoyed working on this tattoo BUT it was one hell of a long night! By 4:30am,  we managed to get it finished!

Enjoy!

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Tattoosday in Massachusetts: Katie's Candle Illuminates Her Arm

On our last full day in Massachusetts, we stopped to visit friends in Northampton and ended up at  Woodstar Cafe for some delicious coffee and afternoon snacks.

The cashier, Katie, had tattoos, and shared this one:

She told me that this piece, on her upper right arm, was based on an old illustration from a history book. The idea, she explained, was "something I'd been carrying around for a while and it just felt right to me."

She credited the work to Jeff Ash at Horseshoes & Hand Grenades Tattoo in Chicopee, Massachusetts.

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

This entry is ©2013 Tattoosday.

If you are seeing this on another website 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.

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Tattoosday in Massachusetts: After a Good Meal, Danny Shares His Costa Rican Heritage

We're back from our Poetry Vacation and we have some tattoos to catch up on. The family and I were up in the Boston area at the end of March, and while staying with cousins in Swampscott, MA, we decided to go out for brunch on Easter Sunday.

We ended up at Mildred's Corner Cafe and Old Soul Gift Shoppe in neighboring Lynn, MA, and I enjoyed this amazingly delicious dish with chorizo and poached eggs:

Not only was the food great but, as an added bonus, our waiter Danny was heavily-tattooed, and he was kind enough to share the work on his left arm:

The emblem in the center of this sleeve is from the Costa Rican flag, which he had tattooed to honor his country of birth. He has lived in the U.S. for about nine years.

He credited the work to Ryan Murray at the Black Veil Studio of Tattoo & Art in Lynn, Massachusetts.

UPDATE: Although Ryan has done work on Danny, I was notified by the shop after this posted, that he was not the artist responsible for this particular piece. I'm waiting to hear back from Danny for the corrected information.

He credited the work to Jeffrey Brito, a free-lance artist that did it out of his house. Although initially credited to Ryan Murray at the Black Veil Studio of Tattoo & Art in Lynn, Massachusetts, we should point out that Murray has done work on Danny, not just this particular piece.

Thanks to Danny for sharing his tattoo with us here on Tattoosday and thanks to the good folks at Mildred's for a delicious meal!

This entry is ©2013 Tattoosday.

If you are seeing this on another website 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.

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SISTINE CHAPEL.

Horacio was back at the studio for a second session. I worked on the gap he had at the back of his arm. I can't wait to finish the entire sleeve. Here is my interpretation of a section of the Sistine Chapel ceiling from Michael Angelo.

''Genius is eternal patience''  -Michelangelo

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The Tattooed Poets Project, Volume 5, A Postscript

Cheryl Maddalena's Beautiful tattoo from 2009

As I look back at the fifth installment of the April tattooed poets extravaganza, I am astonished by the amazing array of talented poets who have contributed to Tattoosday over the years.

This year's contributors totaled 35, and we had even more than that many who had previously expressed interest and did not submit their work in time.

That said, I have high hopes for the 2014 edition, which is only 11 months away. Also, I am going to attempt to add more tattooed poets throughout the year, contributing in non-poetry months. Just to keep our collective appetites whetted.

The list of people I would like to thank grows each year. I'd start with directing readers to the Tattooed Poets Project here and expressing my appreciation to the 155 poets who have appeared on Tattoosday over the past five years.

I am also deeply indebted to Stacey Harwood and David Lehman at the Best American Poetry blog. Their continued support over the years has been immeasurable and they have been nothing but encouraging.

I still maintain that the wonderful writer, Dorianne Laux, is also someone to whom I am deeply indebted. She referred me to a slew of tattooed poets in the first year of this project, and each year sends me more subjects.

I want to thank all the poets who answered my initial inquiries, especially those without tattoos, who often directed me to poets who they knew to be inked.

And finally, I want to thank all of my readers, in and out of the poetry community, who have continued to support and read Tattoosday, and have encouraged me each year to come up with thirty posts (or more) to help celebrate the wonders of the written word and the beauty of tattoos.

Bill Cohen
5/1/2013

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Reenactors needed !

For what?

Great midsummer ritual / fotoshoot.


Where?

Near Copenhagen.


When?

 21. Juni 12:00 (Midsummer)


What is happening?

Like so many sources show (Adam from Bremen, Thietmar of Merseburg, Picture stones, tapestrys) the vikings had some kind of sacrifical ritual, that included suspending people in trees.
That s what we want to do. In cooperation with bodyextremes.com and h2fotografie.blogspot.com nine volunteers will get pierced and hanged during a midsummer ritual.

What do we need you for?

We need you as the crowd of warriors and people participating, watching and cheering up the"victims" and as perfect background for an event, that didn't take place around 1000 years!
Off course in the dress of the vikings.

What do you gain from it?

There will be a tombola for all participants, where you can win some tattoo time with Kai and other attractive things.
There will be free mead and a nice gathering afterwards.
Musicians welcome!
There will be unfortunately no fonds for accomodation etc.


So, if you and your group want to come, just drop me a mail: tattookai@live.dk to receive all further informations.
DO NOT TRY TO MAKE CONTACT VIA FACEBOOK!!!

Hope to see a lot of you for a great time:)

Kai

Oseberg tapestry, showing people hanging in trees

Stora Hammar picture stone, showing suspended and sacrificed people, warrior crowd

http://tattoodk.blogspot.dk/2012/12/ohne-schmerzen-keine-freude.html

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ST JOSEPH.

Today Joseph came in tho get his ST. Joseph piece done.

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The Tattooed Poets Project: Carl Phillips

We're closing out this year's Tattooed Poets Project with Carl Phillips. I've had the pleasure, over the years, of meeting Carl and hearing him read on at least two different occasions at the New School in Manhattan, in conjunction with the Best American Poetry readings. Needless to say, when Carl agreed to participate, I was thrilled.

Here's a photo of Carl's tattoo:

Carl explains:

"I got the tattoo after seeing a compass on a map in my copy of Moby Dick. I chose not to include the N,S,W,E part, to suggest that I lack direction, though the compass itself suggests the desire for direction ... it's on my left upper arm. A guy named Barber did it, at a place here in St. Louis called Iron Age."

Carl pointed me to a few poems online that he said we could share here, and I chose this one:

Leda, After the Swan

Perhaps,
in the exaggerated grace
of his weight
settling,

the wings
raised, held in
strike-or-embrace
position,

I recognized
something more
than swan, I can't say.

There was just
this barely defined
shoulder, whose feathers
came away in my hands,

and the bit of world
left beyond it, coming down

to the heat-crippled field,

ravens the precise color of
sorrow in good light, neither
black nor blue, like fallen
stitches upon it,

and the hour forever,
it seemed, half-stepping
its way elsewhere--

then
everything, I
remember, began
happening more quickly.

~ ~ ~

You can hear Carl read the poem here.

Carl Phillips is the author of twelve books of poetry, most recently Silverchest (2013). He's a professor of English at Washington University in St. Louis.

Thanks to Carl for sharing his tattoo and poem with us here on the Tattooed Poets Project on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2013 Tattoosday. The poem and tattoos 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.

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The Tattooed Poets Project: Susan Briante

Our next tattooed poet is Susan Briante:

Susan explains the origins of this tattoo:

"I got my tattoo in Albuquerque although its origins can be found in Oklahoma, where I took my first job out of collage working for the now defunct Tulsa Tribune. I was making $13,000/year as a reporter covering public education. I rented a room in house with a view to the Sunoco refinery. I was in love with two men, the closest of whom lived almost 700 miles away. Tattoo shops were illegal in Oklahoma at the time, so a friend told me about a tattoo artist from Arizona who would fly into Tulsa and tattoo after hours in the beauty parlor where her mother worked.

I picked out the design from a Mexican milagro, (literally 'miracle') a small metal charm usually in the shape of body part (eyes, lungs, arms) that could be pinned to the robe of a religious statue as offering. They were supposed to concretize the prayers of the faithful. A lung-shaped milagro, for example, might be pinned to the robe on a Virgin of Guadalupe statue along with prayers for the health of a family member with a cough. For my tattoo, I chose a milagro heart with a dagger through it that I thought was supposed to ward off a broken heart.

We awaited the arrival of the tattoo artist from Arizona. And when he didn’t show, I drove with my friend to Albuquerque—and got my tattoo there—where I’d met one of the men I had fallen in love with. The one I would marry and with whom I’d move to Mexico City. The one I would divorce.

I came back to the states, became a poet and started grad school, fell in and out of love a few more times. Early in an intense courtship with the poet Farid Matuk, we took photos of each other’s tattoos and started using them as screen savers on our cell phones. In the ten years since, we’ve moved in together, moved to Dallas, had a baby, got married in copula of a Marfa, Texas, courthouse, switched cell phones and numbers, but we still have the same tattoo photos as screen savers.

A few month ago I figured out what my next tattoo will be (Farid already has his) a copy of the birthmark that our daughter has on the inner arch of her right foot."

Farid's tattoo appeared earlier today on Tattoosday.

Susan directed us to her poem "Parking Space," which appeared here on Verse Daily:

Parking Space

Billboards yield to burdened cloud,
a sulfur pink of population, supply-side chorus
in the static between stations

while the evening sits with its shirt unbuttoned,
while the engine sings bones and armor,
thin legged ponies and miles for water.

Jagged as sleep the sudden breech of elements,
rain scrubs stone, halogen rusts the sky.
You find the country pricked with neon,

spread across the windshield like a centerfold,
until you smell the buckshot, watch the scout
who parts branches with a lover's rough fingers.

As if there might be a place for us:
porch towns between the relay towers,
a folding chair just inside the garage,

a bed of lottery tickets or a fistful of keys.
A bowl at the table. A parking space.
A window full of shallow hills.

~ ~ ~

Copyright © 2007 Susan Briante All rights reserved
from Pioneers in the Study of Motion
Ahsahta Press
Reprinted by Tattoosday with permission

~ ~ ~

Susan Briante is the author of Pioneers in the Study of Motion (2007) and Utopia Minus (2011) both published by Ahsahta Press. Her chapbook, The Market is a Parasite that Looks like a Nest, part of an on-going lyric investigation of the stock market, was recently published by Dancing Girl Press. She is an associate professor of literature and creative writing at the University of Texas at Dallas. She lives in east Dallas with the poet Farid Matuk.

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

This entry is ©2013 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.

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The Tattooed Poets Project: Farid Matuk

Our next tattooed poet is Farid Matuk.

Check out this photo he sent:

That's Farid's foot on the bottom. He explains:

"I had this piece done at Suffer City Tattoos in Dallas, TX on New Year's day 2013. I believe the artist's name is Robert. I chose to replicate a freckle my daughter has on side of her right foot. I wanted to place a crown atop the freckle to suggest the special place she has in my heart.

She's also bossy in an endearing way, and I often feel I'm in training not to serve her needs (as the martyr model of parenting would have it), but to definitely make a place for her needs and agendas in my otherwise self-directed life. I guess this is typical of most parent/toddler relationships and the crown helps me commemorate this dynamic. I took the stylized crown design from a tattoo I saw show up on one of the many tattoo boards I follow on Pinterest. The original design has the crown adorning the top of a bird's head."

Farid sent us his poem, "My Daughter All Yourn," which, he explained, "is one of a series of sonnets [he] wrote after studying the sonnets of Bernadette Mayer. It appears (here) on the Poets.org/Academy of American Poets website."

My Daughter All Yourn

will she be closer to the falling away of the gaze of things than others? 

hands on the water she calls scene setting

hands on the table water over the houses and hills swimming

not the ocean or the sea but the frame of time she’ll tell of

wild happy yeses in her hands

she bites through in rage when rage

comes to her or we do and she’s too small a flag

what does our house say?  these borrowed things solid and whole

fabric lost to her a greasy boy speaks fast at the pizza stand

more available to be seen the young in their concerns

amidst the old artifice paint a boat and it will mean a dream

put names of your dear ones in it all yourn standing up

these little soft hands she bites through the bright white light of summer

shines off sand and vinyl siding itself composed against the salt

~ ~ ~

Farid Matuk is the author of This Isa Nice Neighborhood (Letter Machine Editions, 2010) and the chapbooks Is It The King? (Effing Press, 2006) and Riverside (Longhouse, 2011). New poems have appeared recently or are forthcoming online at Poets.org and in print in Black Warrior Review, Third Coast, Iowa Review, Mandorla, Critical Quarterly (UK), The Baffler, and other journals. This Isa Nice Neighborhood was a finalist for the Norma Farber First Book Prize, and received honorable mention in the 2011 Arab American Book Award. Matuk is a contributor to Scubadivers and Chrysanthemums: Essays On the Poetry of Araki Yasusada (Shearsman, 2011) and to the poetry anthologies American Odysseys: Writing from New Americans (Dalkey Archive, 2013) and Beyond the Field (Counterpath, forthcoming). His new chapbook, My Daughter La Chola, is forthcoming from Ahsahta in March, 2013.

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

This entry is ©2013 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.

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Yggdrasil tattoo

Like so many designs, this one is also very complex, every element has a deeper meaning in it, wich would be too much to write it down here and too personal.
The runes are the first line of this poem:

Men endelig 

Forsto jeg 

Treets språk

Og det avslørte sin kjærlighet

Til vinterens grove favn.

Forelsket fortalte det

Og frostens

Barske kjærtegn

Som gav det

Moten og kraften

Til sommerens 

Frodige mirakler


 Bjørn Richter

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The Tattooed Poets Project: Christopher Arigo

Our next tattooed poet is Christopher Arigo, who sent us this image from his thigh:

He tells us:

Often referred to as “The Shaman” or “The Sorceror,” my tattoo is based on a sketch by Henri Breuil of a cave painting from a cavern in Trois-Frères, Ariège, France. Breuil, a French archeologist, claimed that the drawing/etching represented a Paleolithic shaman, a kind of happy hunting juju. I’ve always been intrigued by this particular image---I remember seeing a picture of it when I was fairly young, probably in some Time-Life book about cave art or something. For me, it represents a connection to our not-so-distant Paleolithic past and I do hunt, so maybe some of its juju will rub off. I have several other cave art tattoos, so it’s also part of an ongoing theme on my body. There’s something very visceral and ancient about it. There is also the question: why did they make this art?

The tattoo was done by Riley Baxter at Pussykat Tattoo in Las Vegas.

The poem that Christopher sent us keeps with the Paleothic theme:

Considering the fossils

once sap

now combustible

stone

once called electron

god-tears

carved petrified sun

once mixed


with rose-oil

for failing eyes

now eyes

warm to the touch

burned as incense

burning to remember

and when you dig

it is hard to believe

the stone

was once wood

its rings now ring


with a finger's flick

no longer

ligneous

bark and cambium

visible

in cross-section

how to believe

that gingko leaves

leave behind

fan-shapes


veins and chloroplasts

almost intact

no xylem

left after rain

and pressure

and layers

and layers

of sand and relentless

lithography

~ ~ ~ 

Christopher Arigo’s first poetry collection Lit Interim won the 2001-2002 Transcontinental Poetry Prize (selected by David Bromige) and was published by Pavement Saw Press (2003). His second collection In the archives (2007) was released by Omnidawn Publishing. His poems have appeared in numerous literary magazines including Colorado Review, New American Writing, Barrow Street, and many others. He co-edits the literary journal Interim with poet Claudia Keelan and is an Assistant Professor of English at Washington State University.

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

This entry is ©2013 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.

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