Letters on the M Train (Tattoosday Plays the Alphabet Game)

Continuing our alphabetical adventure through the subways, I set my sights on the M train (Wonder what's going on? I recap A through L here).

I took the L one stop to 6th Avenue, where I switched for the M.

12:27 Waiting for the M.

12:35, on a northbound M, when I met Casey.

Casey had some tattoos marked on his hands which I found interesting:

Looking at the visible tattoos in this image, you'll see four letters. From left to right, there's a "C" on his index finger, a "T" on the middle finger, another "C" on his ring ringer, and a "K" below the knuckle of his pinky. Casey explained that the letters were initials of his siblings, and they are all based on fonts from French childrens' books. So, the first C and T are based on the font in Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince. The second C and the K are based on fonts from Edmond à la plage.

These tattoos were also on his hand:

He pointed out that he tattooed the word "love" himself and the "R.O.T." stands for "Right On Time," a nickname he got from kids he was counseling that refers to his punctuality.

Thanks to Casey for sharing these interesting hand tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!

Come back tomorrow to see what happened on the next train!

This entry is ©2018 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.

Caitlin Roach and the Letter J (The Tattooed Poets Project)

Today's tattooed poet is Caitlin Roach, who shared this very simple tattoo:

Caitlin tells us about her ink:

"When I first met my husband, transcendent essayist José Orduña, we fell fast and hard in love. A couple weeks in he told me he wanted me to tattoo him–something boundless and chaotic, whatever I thought of in the moment–an infatuated request of pure impulse. The only calculated part of the plan was that we would tattoo one another. We had a no. 2 pencil, a sewing needle, thread, and some India ink, and Bill Callahan played from tinny laptop speakers as I scribbled something on his arm as an outline. The tattoo I started that night (it really was a scribble, a non-thing) didn’t get finished. The popping sound of the needle entering his skin with each poke nauseated us both. We never switched turns, and we decided we would finish another time. 

Four years later we were married, his tattoo still unfinished and mine yet started. The night of our one-year wedding anniversary, in Albuquerque where we were living at the time, on another impulsive whim, we sat at our kitchen table with a needle, a pencil, some thread, and the same bottle of ink. We would finish the job we started and add something additional to mark our first year of marriage. I ended up with a small, lower-case j on my wrist, he with a c on his. I never completed his scribble, and it’s still unfinished. 

A friend of ours noticed them once and asked if we 'paid about 50 cents' for them, noting they looked like they’d fallen off the table and landed in our laps. Mine’s gritty and inexact and looks more like a fish hook than a j. But it’s a permanent artifact of that night and I love that. It’s like its own little voice on my wrist, always calling my attention and getting it because I notice it several times a day. I love that, amidst all the rational calculation that directs so much of our lives, there’s still an impulsive spontaneity that surfaces up between us. My husband swears he’s done with homemade tattoos, but I’m not so certain. I just need to upgrade on materials–maybe learn how to make a proper (still homemade) tattoo gun."

Caitlin shared the following poem, as well:

Dirge for ice sheets receding

Everything bends to you. Even the creeping

sedum slows to apprehend you, splitting cracks

more open at your passing to wrest what notice
might still exist inside you. The last living box

elder, hunkered resolute in the corner, flickers
in its moldy hull like a twitch, knowing nothing

but awaits you. Somewhere yarrow readies itself
to stanch the blood you’ll let from it and airs its

sweetness still to solicit even your indifference.
All those Julys spent damp in the fern room

where the egg fruit swelled and swung adjacent
to the drunkard’s dream, dancing bones glutting

deep yellow bells swinging, kept me on my knees.
The weeping fig never clapped a tear from its glossy

stem then. Still you bent to stroke forth shame from
the touch-me-not to see the plant’s spines rise,

to watch it live up its name round your finger.
Haven’t I been this sensitive. I’ve seen black

blacken in the center of you. I’m not trying to
capture light. I’m after the dark bit dumbed by

the brightness flanking all sides but still whirls
around its own dark heart, purging impractical

fractions. That, or the velvet ice slats slipping
away from their silver throats so surely I cannot

buck the thawing, I can never remember. Anything
but the clasp. But the bells’ wet din.

Copyright (c) 2018 by Caitlin Roach; first appeared on TinHouse.com.

~ ~ ~

Caitlin Roach earned an MFA in poetry from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her poems appear or are
forthcoming in Best New Poets 2017, Poetry Northwest, Tin House, Colorado Review, The Journal, West Branch, Copper Nickel, Prelude, Handsome, and The Iowa Review. You can find her at caitlinroach.com.

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

This entry is ©2018 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.

Mara's Flower for Her Mother

Yesterday I met, Mara, from Argentina, outside of the New York Stock Exchange at the corner of Wall Street and Broad. She shared this lovely tattoo from her upper back:

Mara hails from Argentina, and she explained that the rose bears her mother's initials in the center of the flower.

She got this done at home from an artist named Luciana who is currently tattooing in France.

Thanks to Mara for sharing her flower with us here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2015 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.

Missy's Initials, Illustrated by Gorey

I met Missy on the corner of 23rd and 7th back in the beginning of September and she shared her two tattoos, on both biceps.Her right arm bears this piece:

and her left shoulder hosts this cool image:

 

These images may seem familiar, because they are based on Edward Gorey's Alphabet.

Missy has the two pieces representing her initials, M and N. The right arm represents "M": 

And the left arm represents the "N" for her last initial:

Missy got these tattoos in Santa Cruz about ten years ago.

Thanks to Missy for sharing her cool Gorey tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!

The EMC is the Only EMC

I met Eric in Penn Station as I was headed back to work during lunch.

His sole tattoo on his right forearm reads "THE EMC". The EMC refers to his initals, his full name being Eric Manuel Concepcion.

He prefaced his initials with the article "the" so he can set himself apart. It's an manifestation of his individuality.

He wants to have "great significance in life" and has a larger piece in mind to build around this tattoo.

"Only one person can be me," he says, and this exemplifies his conviction that he will be great at being who he is, and that "no one will copy" him.

I've invited Eric to submit more photos as the piece evolves.

The tattoo was inked at Funcity Tattoos in Manhattan. Other work from Funcity has previously appeared here.

Thanks to Eric for sharing his personal tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!