Kayleb Rae Candrili and Stevie Nicks (The Tattooed Poets Project)

Our next tattooed poet is Kayleb Rae Candrili, who shared this tattoo:

Kayleb's tattoo was inked by Timmy Tatts (@timmytattsoriginal) at King Cobra Tattoo (@king.cobra.tattoo) in State College, PA, 2014. The tattoo makes an appearance in the following poem, "Some Thoughts on Luck," which was first published with Peach Magazine, January 22nd, 2019:

SOME THOUGHTS ON LUCK

:::

superstitious sicilians in the mountains,

all we spoke about 

was mickey mantle and my father’s 

old mafia ties. 

can you imagine 

the rabbit’s feet hung 

round my neck during hunting 

season, the fur 

matted and the nails 

so desperate 

to finally decompose. 

what does it mean

to carry a dead

animal so closely to your heart

in hopes you might 

kill some more. 

:::

   

:::

when i learned to swallow 

i began to drink

the ocean. so much booze

it might as well 

have been sea salt. drunk and in

a bad love, stevie nicks 

was my only god.

and what is god

besides a superstition,

a belief 

in that which 

will never be proven. 

my inner thigh is tattooed with an effigy 

of a rock star—so holy,

but still proving 

the way liquor can take 

hold of even your skin, 

make it

something you’ve never seen before

and will see every day after.

     :::

:::

my father has always hated 

women, though 

he has always needed them. 

what a rich history,

this narrative of misogyny. 

counting fist-falls 

as sheep

is a storied simile. 

finally, i am no longer drunk

or superstitious.

and though i am marked 

by having been so,

i can feel love

now, like my father 

              never has. 

i am thankful to have been born 

his daughter 

because if i had been born my father’s son, 

forget about it.

::: 

Kayleb Rae Candrilli is a 2019 Whiting Award Winner in Poetry and the author of What Runs Over with YesYes Books, which was a 2017 finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in transgender poetry. Their second collection, All the Gay Saints, won the 2018 Saturnalia Book Contest and is forthcoming in Spring 2020. Candrilli is published or forthcoming in POETRY, TriQuarterly Review, Academy of American Poets, Boston Review and many others. You can read more here.

Thanks to Kayleb for sharing their cool tattoo and 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.

Geffrey Davis on The Tattooed Poets Project

Today's tattooed poet is Geffrey Davis:

Photo by Adam Haley

Phot by Chris Abani

Geffrey explains:

"Five and counting, and all similarly designed, I got my first three tattoos at

Laughing Buddha in Seattle, WA, the city in which I was born; I got the second

two at King Cobra in State College, PA, the city in which my son was born.

Because I watched my own father’s drug addiction compromise his way with

care, I spent too much of my childhood and adulthood believing I needed to

spare others and myself the burden of my reliance. Of course, that was just this

son’s early flailing against the reality of being failed by one major source of light.

And so, this ongoing tattoo series reflects my commitment (as well as my

struggle) to recognize, honor, and sometimes rename the numinous sources of

light—healthy or otherwise—that allow us to see, understand, and move

ourselves through this life."

Geffrey also shared the following poem:
~ ~ ~

The Radiance

how often will your dearness fly

down the open throat of life

and restart the work of wringing myths

from my mouth    even the promised body

blunders like this    nights I slip

outside as the city sleeps

to spark a sickly flame against the burst

of stars or June fireflies dispersed

in the yard    and then the radiance

of something else awake in the dark

floods the scene     as if to interrupt as if

your rogue tenderness itself    either way

my head’s calamity ignites with conjuring

and banishing—which means I am

a warm diaspora of blues    which means

my hands will fail to carry any one

formula for light    which is to say no

equal signs flare inside this heart

[First published by At Length.]

~ ~ ~

Geffrey Davis is the author of Revising the Storm ​(BOA Editions 2014), winner of the A. Poulin Jr. Poetry Prize and a Hurston/Wright Legacy Award Finalist, and of Night Angler (BOA Editions 2019). A recipient of the Anne Halley Poetry Prize, the Wabash Prize for Poetry, and fellowships from the Cave Canem Foundation and the Vermont Studio Center, his work is forthcoming or has been published by The Academy of American Poets, ​The Massachusetts Review, New England Review, ​The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, and Ploughshares. Davis teaches at the University of Arkansas and in The Rainier Writing Workshop low-res MFA program, and he serves as poetry editor of Iron Horse Literary Review.

Thanks to Geffrey for celebrating the Tattooed Poets Project on Tattoosday in honor of National Poetry Month by contributing his tattoos and poem!

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.