Sarah Nichols, the Peacock and the Cobra (The Tattooed Poets Project)

Today's tattooed poet is Sarah Nichols, who shared this cobra-peacock mashup:

Sarah tells us:

"This is my first tattoo. I had it done in February, 2017, right before my 43 rd
birthday; I had wanted one for a long time, but it always seemed like the time or the money wasn’t right. It was done at Witchhouse Tattoo (@witchhousetattoo) in Hartford, Connecticut, by Courtney (@czar_baebatron) , the shop’s owner. The tattoo is a cobra with a peacock’s head, and it is after the work of artist James Prosek (@jamesprosek), specifically a drawing entitled The Peacock and The Cobra. For me, both animals are elegant and fierce; as a hybrid creature, it is beautiful and strange, and that comes across in the tattoo."

Sarah also shared the following poem, which is from her chapbook of Sylvia Plath/C.D. Wright centos, She May Be a Saint, which was published in 2016.

Other Bodies

In my flammable skin,
I grow shadows.

Blood, substanceless.
An arm
a face
birthmarks.

A box of poison
too pure for longings.

A body,
flickering.

My new instrument.

~ ~ ~

[Sources: C.D. Wright: “Girl Friend,” “Autographs,” “Because Fulfilment Awaits,” and “And it Came to Pass.” Sylvia Plath: “Ariel,” “Death and Co.,” and “Fever 103.”]

~ ~ ~

Sarah Nichols lives and writes in Connecticut. She is the author of seven chapbooks, including This is Not a Redemption Story (dancing girl press), Dreamland for Keeps (Porkbelly Press) and Little Sister (Grey Book Press.) Her poems and essays can also be found in Glass: a Journal of Poetry, Memoir Mixtapes, Rogue Agent, and Dream Pop.

You can read more of her work by clicking through the following links:
https://www.dreampoppress.net/sarah-nichols/
http://www.glass-poetry.com/poets-resist/nichols-narcan.html
http://www.lunalunamagazine.com/blog/poetry-by-sarah-nichols

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

This entry is ©2019 Tattoosday. The poem and tattoo are reprinted with the poet's permission.

If you are reading 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.net 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.

Some Belgian Ink in Manhattan

Back in September, I met a couple on the steps of Federal Hall in lower Manhattan. They were visiting from Belgium and, between them, had quite a few tattoos. Kenny and Ineke were kind enough to share their work.

First up is this shot of Ineke's head:

Ineke credited the patterns on her scalp to Erik El Santo (@erik_el_santo) at Dagger Moon Tattoo (@daggermoontattoo) in Hasselt, Belgium.

Kenny shared this amazing work on his chest:

The skull and cobra were done by Don Porto (@tattoodonporto), from Inkhouse in Geel, Belgium.

Thanks to Kenny and Ineke for sharing their amazing tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2017 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.

Snakes on a Train (Tattoosday Plays the Alphabet Game)

The Alphabet Game continues....

After  just over an hour on the D train, I finally found a cool tattoo (here) and now had to go all the way back into Manhattan to connect to an E train.

The plan was to catch an uptown E at West 4^th Street. My phone was at 33% battery so I used the hour it took to get back into the city to recharge.

At 12:38 P.M., as the E pulled in at West 4^th, I spotted a woman with some incredible work. What luck! After 2 hours on the D, back and forth, I met Eva in under a minute, and she shared this amazing cobra tattoo:

This cool snake was done in three sittings by Jon Clue (@jonclue) at Sacred Tattoo (@sacredtattoonyc) in Manhattan. “I love snakes,” Eva told me, “and I love what he [Clue] does.”

I hadn’t expected to catch anything this great on my subway journey, so I considered myself very lucky.

I featured another piece by Jon earlier this year here.

At 12:40, the E pulled into 34^th Street/Penn Station and I decided to take a break for lunch.

Thanks to Eva for sharing her amazing tattoo on Tattoosday!

Check out the whole Alphabet Game experience here.

This entry is ©2017 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.

Lexy’s Chrysanthemum Sprouts from a Poem

I was leaving my office building last week on Broad Street, when a woman named Lexy walked by with this great thigh tattoo:

I caught up to her, introduced myself and she agreed to share her ink with us here.

This piece was done by Alejandro Lopez, who is based in Pasadena, California, but works out of Addiction NYC when he's in the Big Apple.

When I asked her if she originally went to Alejandro for the chrysanthemum, she said that actually, she
had gone to him for this tattoo on her ribs:

“This is a poem,” she explained, “and I told [Alejandro] the meaning of the poem, and he reached out
to me and said, You know, I really like the poem, it resonated with me and he asked if he could expand
on it … And we sat down and talked about what the meaning was for me and he created this piece [the
chrysanthemum] based on what it meant to me.”

She indicated that the poem is Korean in origin, and it is in her grandmother’s handwriting. It turns
out that Lexy’s grandma was a professional calligrapher in Korea, and the red boxes are actual
representations of her grandparent’s pen names, or signatures, in Korean. How cool is that?

She elaborated a little more on the meaning of the poem:

“The poem itself is talking about whether you live or die as a nameless wildflower or a famous rose, it’s up to you, so you basically take control of your destiny, but [should] also have compassion for those who have no control … it also says something about the day that you’re born is the day that you die.”

Lexy also told me she was born in the year of the snake, which is why she has a cobra tattoo. I didn't think much of it at the time, as I didn't see a snake here.

When I was writing up this post, however, and looked at Alejandro's Instagram page, it all made sense. After getting his permission, along with Lexy's, I am happy to share the whole work-in-progress which, for obvious reasons, I never saw on Broad Street:

Photo Courtesy of Alejandro P. Lopez via http://instagram.com/alejandropaivalopez

Thanks to Lexy for sharing her wonderful tattoo with us here on Tattoosday! Thanks, as well, to Alejandro Lopez for sharing his Instagram collage so we could see his work in its full scope.

This entry is ©2014 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.

Tattoorism: Naveed's Cobra

Occasionally we'll post a reader submission, referring to it as "tattoorism," as this is, for the most part, a New York City site. There are plenty of websites that cater solely to reader submissions but, I figure, once in a while, it's nice to see someone making the effort to send me a photo with a narrative.

The following submission comes from "across the pond":

This cool tattoo belongs to Naveed, who writes:

"I am 18 years old currently a student in the UK and I live in Bristol. I would like to submit a tattoo, I know you prefer to upload tattoos from people you've met but I am particularly proud of this tattoo as it is my third. It is a king cobra wrapped around a harp with jasmine flowers surrounding it. They are all national symbols of my ethnicities, the king cobra is the national snake of India, the jasmine flowers are the national flower of Pakistan and the harp is the national symbol of Ireland. It was done by Phil Webster at Tattoo House in Dewsbury."      

I should note that Phil Webster is not on the Tattoo House website, but is currently be co-owner of Integrity Tattoo Lounge in Ossett, West Yorkshire. I was able to find a much crisper photo on his Facebook page, so I am reprinting it here for the sake of fully representing what a nice tattoo this is:

Thanks to Naveed for sending along this tattoo to us here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2011 Tattoosday.

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.