Darren Demaree and Emily (The Tattooed Poets Project)

Our next tattooed poet is Darren C. Demaree, who first appeared on Tattoosday in April 2013 (here) and, again, in April 2014 (here). Darren heeded my call for returning contributors and sent the following photo:

His tattoo, which reads, "Emily says I'm a good man," crosses his ribcage. He tells us that he got the inscription "at a shop on High Street in Columbus that has since changed their name a couple of times."

Darren sent us the following poem from his Emily series:

EMILY AS A SMILE WOULD HAVE RUINED THE PICTURE

There was one look, one picture

of Emily in a bathtub right before

we got married, she was travelling

with her family, she was in Madrid

or Paris or Istanbul, she had been gone

for a couple of weeks, so I had been

drunk for a couple of weeks

& she knew that I had been drunk

for a couple of weeks, so she sent me

a picture of her in the bathtub, one

breast covered, hair in a way I’d never

seen before, looking directly at the faucet

& so surely the tatters of my world 

collected into a whole woman

so beautiful that when I got the picture

I accidently deleted the picture.

I remember it clearly though, her face,

elegant, angry that she didn’t have

her hands wrapped around the back

of my head to pull me off of the bottle.

She wanted to bury me in her beauty

& that almost worked too well.

I am sober.  I don’t have that picture.

I have Emily.  She looks at me now.

~ ~ ~

Darren C. Demaree is the author of thirteen poetry collections, most recently So Clearly Beautiful, (November 2019, Adelaide Books). He is the recipient of a 2018 Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award, the Louis Bogan Award from Trio House Press, and the Nancy Dew Taylor Award from Emrys Journal. He is the Managing Editor of the Best of the Net Anthology and Ovenbird Poetry. He is currently living in Columbus, Ohio with his wife and children. @d_c_demaree (www.darrencdemaree.com)

Anyone interested in the collection of “Emily as” poems can get it from Harpoon Books here.

Thanks to Darren for returning to Tattoosday to contribute to the Tattooed Poets Project!

This entry is ©2020 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.

The Light Shines in the Darkness (Courtney Thrash on the Tattooed Poets Project)

Our next tattooed poet is Courtney Thrash, who sent us this photo:

Courtney recounted how she got thi tattoo:

"Several years ago, I endured a very difficult period in my life. After the dust settled, I looked over my journals and poems from that period and found dozens of instances where I had written about the concepts of darkness and light and their interactions--with no conscious realization of the theme. Once it was part of my awareness, I could trace the thread of light (hope) shining in and bringing me out of many varieties of darkness throughout my life. The light, for me, has a very specific and religious meaning, which is why I chose this phrase from the gospel of John for my tattoo. In its entirety, the phrase reads: 'The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.' My tattoo serves as both memorial and prescript, totem and prescience, proclamation of truth and victory and desperate prayer for times of doubt and defeat. The tattoo was done by Betty Rose (@bettyrosetattoos) of Rose & Crown Tattoos (@roseandcrowntattoos) in Austin, TX."

Courtney sent us the following poem, as well:

Mama, I Don’t Believe  

After C.D. Wright’s More Blues and the Abstract Truth  

  

The first freckles appear on his nose.  

Nerf gun bullets whistle like real ones;  

He shares a birthday   

with his great grandfather.  

And I say, No, he didn’t come  

to the party. He was already dead.  

  

In early April, we thumbed seeds into the dark;  

At the end of June he asks after  

the watermelon vine absent from the sill.  

I bury the tiny planter in the trash  

and say, I’m still learning  

how to grow things.  

  

Then there are the jokes he tells, doesn’t get,  

the legos in my purse, the toes  

rubbing holes through his shoes, moving  

notches up the door frame.  

He tells me his love in numbers.  

And I say, love is infinite  

or nothing.  

  

Well, mama, he says.  

What about apologies. What about waterfalls  

that never end. And superheroes who stop  

bad guys. Lock them up in vaults  

like your papers and Mamaw’s brooch,  

day. after. day. And will Papaw Richard  

come back to life with Jesus?  

He cries when a cartoon robot longs for love.  

And I say, a hornworm will strip a tomato plant  

Faster Than You Can Say Famine.

~ ~ ~

Courtney Thrash is a poet, writer, editor, mom, and wife in Austin, TX. You can find her work on the American Scholar’s poetry column “Next Line, Please,” in Rascal, and on Instagram @courtneythrashwriter, but mostly in notebooks and word documents.

Thanks to Courtney for sharing her tattoo with us on Tattoosday's Tattooed Poets Project!

This entry is ©2020 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.

Jeevika Verma - dark, darker (The Tattooed Poets Project)

Our next tattooed poet is Jeevika Verma (@_jeevika), who generously shared several tattoos with us. 

Photo via Instagram

 Jeevika tells us:

"I wrote a poem titled 'dark, darker' in Rome. It was the summer of 2016, and I was part of an intensive one-month creative writing program organized by the University of Washington. I’d spent the month thinking deeply about what it meant to delve deeper into the unknown, and how the truth often exists in what cannot be seen. Plus, I was one of the only POC in my program, and I was constantly aware of how my brownness played into my relationship with my classmates, and my relationship with Europe. I got this tattoo to commemorate my last day in Rome."

She also shared this shot from Instagram above her knee, "alluding to the bray of Sylvia Plath’s heart 'I am, I am, I am' ”:

Photo via Instagram

Jeevika also sent us this photo of her arm, which has several tattoos:

Jeevika elaborates about the four tattoos seen on her left arm above:

" 'this,' is the first tattoo I got. I got it at a shop in Mumbai when I was 18, and just about to start college. I designed it to make it look like it’s part of a larger sentence, like there’s something more to be said before and after the word. 'this,' reminds me to stay in the present. Plus, I love playing with the word 'this'. When people ask me what my favorite tattoo is, I point to it, and say 'this.'

Surrounded by 'this,' are all the the things that help me remember who I am. A full moon rules my zodiac sign, in Cancer. A prickly pear is my soul-plant. Two hands open like wings, together, but each a separate entity."

She credited Randi Ftizpatrick (@probmchild) at Osprey Tattoo (@ospreytattoo) in Seattle with the hands, MKNZ (@ruffenough) from Valentine's Tattoo (@valentinestattoo) in Seattle with the cactus, and Gia (@giactattoo) at Fatty's Tattoos (@fattystattoosandpiercings) in Washington, DC, with the moon tattoo.

Jeevika shared the following poem, "dark, darker," alluded to in the first tattoo above. It was first published in Cleaver Magazine on March 22, 2017:

dark, darker

when I frown

into this mirror

a depth takes

my forehead

inside there is a little white man

sitting straight

working hard

flipping through

pages used unused

these are records

of me fighting gravity

like that one time

I did not kneel before

him

should I find a floor that will not reflect

how my teeth have shattered against it for centuries

like that one time

should I lay a drape over my upright head

the white in my eye has grown very yellow anyway

but the shadow of the obelisk is bent this way

I could grab that neck

twist it so

all the white drips

out

folds

into my lap

and collects

like the sweat

on my bare brown back

away from the mirror

there is no white here

I know

~ ~ ~

Jeevika says we "can also find poet Nikesh Murali's beautiful reading of [the] poem here."

Jeevika Verma is a poet from India with a passion for radical honesty. She graduated from the University of Washington in December 2016 with a B.A. in Creative Writing. Before college, she lived in Cameroon (Yaoundé), which is where she founded her own creative-literary journal Creative Chaos. Her work has been featured in NPR, Kajal Magazine, Sentinel Literary Quarterly, Cleaver Magazine, Susie Magazine, and more. She also curated and edited the “Loving” Anthology, as well as five short zines, titled Turns, Cuts, Grate, Long Distance Newsletters, and Scale(s). Find Jeevika’s complete portfolio at jeevikav.com.

Thanks to Jeevika Verma for her contribution to 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.

Russell Jaffe on the Tattooed Poets Project

Our second tattooed poet today is Russell Jaffe, who shared two tattoos:

Russell tells us:

"The 'I LOVE YOU' I got in 2010 in Iowa city. I don't remember the place. The tattoo artist blasted the shit out of my arm and it HURT! But I got it because I was undergoing a massive seismic shift in my personality and understanding of the world: that I could not always control what happened to me, but I could control my responses. I have always been very emotional. By approaching people with love and holding myself to that, I could be a better self and a better person."

He also shared this piece on his hand:

Russell explains:

"The second one was done in 2016 at Skin Abrasions (what a name) in Oak Park, where I live now. My wife, Carleen Tibbetts, and I met through poetry; we both got into the same journal together, H_NGM_N. We talked, and she had no game at all, sent me questions about submitting to a journal she ran and asking me about edits. It wasn't until Cassandra Gillig suggested she send this kissy face that I realized she was into me--I had totally been into her!

Life is so strange and funny. Any teeny, tiny hole in the fabric of the day's minutia can be torn open to reveal keyholes to other worlds entirely. Entire wonderlands and alternate realities. We've been together 3 years and have a 2 and a half year old! This tattoo is like my love for Carleen: endlessly makes me happy, a reminder, never going away. On my hand, it's with me in whatever I do, front and center."

Russell shared the following poem, which he notes that he loves, "but Carleen hates." Adding, "No one will publish it!" Until now!

FLORET SPRUNG

Life is a floret sprung
Yeah

~ ~ ~

Russell Jaffe is the editor of TL;DR magazine, a magazine of what's now. He is the author of the poetry collections This Super Doom I Aver (Poets Democracy, '13), INTROVERT // EXTROVERT (Punk Hostage, '14), Civil Coping Mechanisms (Civil Coping Mechanisms, forthcoming '17) and the chapbook LA CROIX WATER (Damask Press, 16). ☄️

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

This entry is ©2017 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.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.

Tattooed Poet of the Month - Shane McCrae

The month of September has drawn to an end and I almost forgot our Tattooed Poet of the Month!

Meet Shane McCrae, who shared this tattoo:

Shane tells us:

"I got this here tattoo the summer before my senior year at college. A few months previously, I had gone through an awful break-up that was entirely my fault. In the midst of the break-up, Madonna’s 'What It Feels Like for a Girl' video premiered. Now, I don’t know whether you remember that video, but in it Madonna’s badass character has the word 'LOVED' tattooed on the back of her neck. I saw this and was immediately moved by it—I’m still moved by the memory. And though I had never wanted a tattoo before, suddenly I wanted that tattoo, and I wanted it on the back of my neck. A few months later, in the final days of summer, I was hanging out with my mom in Portland, and on the spur of the moment, it was decided (my mom was somehow even more into the idea than I was) that I should get the tattoo, but on my arm. I don’t remember exactly where I got it done, but I’ve noticed it every day since, and it has made me happy every day since. I think of it as both a record of, and a reminder of, an aspiration—it reminds me to love more.

As a reference, here's the aforementioned video:

Shane also shared this poem:

The Image of the Body in the Mind

In 1995 I moved     Lord from one side     / Of Jacksonville to the other

Except my money didn’t change

But the apartment Lord was nicer

I rented from a man I can’t remember     now unless I slide

Boss Hogg’s face and body

Over his face and body in my mind

Which now are blanks expecting Boss Hogg’s face and body

But he was kind

Or what     I thought was kind back then

Lord     / When I was poor     / And told me in his office I can’t now begin

Lord     / Even to picture

if I don’t first picture Rosco bringing him bad news

He’d let me rent a place I couldn’t     not     on SSI afford

As long as I     wouldn’t complain     / Yes

roaches but no roaches     when I woke up

crawling on my eyes

~ ~ ~ 

Shane McCrae teaches at Oberlin College and at Spalding University’s low-residency MFA in Writing Program. His most recent books are In the Language of My Captor (forthcoming from Wesleyan University Press in 2017) and The Animal Too Big to Kill (Persea Books, 2015). He has received a Whiting Writer’s Award, a fellowship from the NEA, and a Pushcart Prize.

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

This entry is ©2016 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.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: Tessara Dudley

Our next tattooed poet is Tessara Dudley. She sent us these photos:

Tessara tell us:

"I got 'Radical Self Begins With Radical Self-Love' after my partner got it, and I wanted the reminder on my skin as well. Under that is the anti-possession symbol from Supernatural, which my partner and I got together because we're both fans of the show. 

On my forearm is 'The Struggle Continues', and a Black power fist, which I got as a very visible badge of my politics, and as a reminder to myself that there's still so much work to do in the world, not just on racial justice, but on LGBTQ+ equity, disability justice, socioeconomic stratification, and more."

Tessara credited her work to "the talented Levi Greenacres at Skeleton Key Tattoo in Portland, OR."

She also sent us this poem:

Blood Lines

213 years back I can trace my mother

not so far my father

NorthSouthCarolina

Georgia

Maryland

the horror of plantation space

laid over mass graves unacknowledged

to obscure atrocities

but I see in 600/400 vision

haunted by subjugation

slaughter

when I hear spirituals

I shiver

knowing that my ancestors sang these words from

bodies too tightly bound for anything but voice

to escape                     craved-for impossibility

but to remain               vindictive probability

I cry for

bodies holding together through too much want

the water taste of porridge

gagging on the ashes in their mouths

my ancestors turned from fires

of their own kindlingflesh

pointed north in whispers of freedomfutures

dreaming days of light and joy

I come

from survivors

pulling back on the reins of storychants

and shouting

no

I am here and

I shall not be moved and

we shall overcome and

we are family

my family is struggle made flesh

where ancestors inhabit our bodies and share space

with our souls

whispering

do not forget

I labour to remember what I never knew

Herculean task made possible by bloodsong

the past informs my path to moonsteps

and the future is everyday written on my bones

~ ~ ~

A writer, educator, and activist living in Portland, OR, Tessara Dudley writes poetry and personal essay from the intersection of working class Black queer disabled life, and hopes her art will help to build a better world. She can be found at http://tessaradudley.com and the small press she founded is at http://mourningglorypub.com.

Thanks to Tessara for her contribution to the Tattooed Poets Project on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2015 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.

The Tattooed Poets Project: David Greenspan

Our next tattooed poet reached out to me on social media and shared this tattoo:

This is the back of David Greenspan, who started Butcher Shop Press in 1999 after running Oneonta State College's literary and art journal for several years.

David told me, "The first time I ever used the butcher image was in a poem I wrote in high school called 'an American Dream.' " He added, "the line read no more sour looks for the butcher, no more time to stop and chew the fat."

He also sent us the following poem, "The Butcher Shop," which he composed "a few years later while sitting in an American poetry class:"

The Butcher Shop

I walk the street in search of meat
because this vegetarian poem has left me hungry
outside this hippie café as the parade passes by
with nothing to say
stop on some corner and step inside
“Can I have two pounds of thick cut poetry?”
I ask and the man with more hair on his arms
and chin than on his head says
“Sorry, we’re all out.”

Out of lines, out of dreams
so I walk outside and try to screw
the light back in above my head
only to hear the poem shaking around inside
and I don’t have the two dollars to buy a new one.

So I start on the go and notice in the window
that my reflection has put on some weight since the butcher shop
So I suck in my cheeks and stand for weeks
on impotent closed lines, half erased words and boring verbs
only to find my sweater’s wearing thin.
So I tie one loose strand to the meter
and leave it outside with the dogs as all the Strands should’ve been long ago
I buy papers for the butcher
I keep Maya’s poetry under my caged birds
and I start to walk and “Whoo. . .do I feel a draft coming in?”
or out as I lift my pen and cut the butcher in half.
And he asks why would I ever do a thing like that?
and he eats crab apples and puppy dogs and licorice
and he darns his socks with dental floss
and he does the hokey pokey and he turns himself around
and starts to cry “That’s what it’s all about?”

Where’s my course?
My coarse course, my vision for a course

I’m tired!

I’m tired of these salty saloons and dark doors
tired of these idiosyncratic idiots all laughing at their own jokes.
I’m tired of constipated poetry, It must stop!
I’m full. Exhausted. Breathing heavier than last night’s romp. . .
so I walk back down to the butcher
and throw a painting on the counter and say:“Give me three pounds of Van Gogh’s ear pounded thin!”

Thanks to David for sharing his poem and tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2015 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.

The Tattooed Poets Project: Kristin Ann Fahlbusch

Our next poet is Kristin Ann Fahlbusch, who sent us this glimpse of a tattoo on her ribs:

The tattoo reads: "The risk of sentimentality is a risk worth taking."

Kristin Ann explains:

"I lost my older brother, Brendan, in a freak bicycle accident when I was just a little girl. Many years later, I came to NYC to The New School to try to further process Brendan's death through my poetry. But once I actually got there, I felt very 'blocked' creatively and struggled to create the collection of poems that I had dreamed of writing most of my young life.

The first serious poem I ever wrote about my brother, 'Something I Never Told You', I edited with the help of my professor, the incomparable poet, Paul Violi. Paul's only comment on my poem was, 'The risk of sentimentality is a risk worth taking.' After meeting with him after our poetry workshop one night, Paul told me that this poem would surely be my gateway to my first collection of poems--and he was right! My first collection of poems is still on its way to fruition but I never would have had the courage to explore my feelings surrounding Brendan's death and create this collection without Paul's constant support and encouragement.

When Paul passed away four years ago from cancer, I tattooed his wise words ('The risk of sentimentality is a risk worth taking') on my rib cage and promised myself never to give up on my goal of becoming a published poet because Paul never gave up on me."

Kristin's tattoo was done by Andrew "The Kid" Farnsley at Mark Mahoney's Shamrock Social Club in Hollywood, California.

Here is the poem Kristin Ann mentions above:

Something I Never Told You


This small scar
on the palm of my right hand,
near the heel.

Like a memento
of our childhood.

I played with my Barbie dolls
in your Castle Greyskull.

I’ve grown up without you,
in the shadow of their expectations
for their first-born child,
I dressed your Alf in doll clothes.

I’ve tried to live my life
for the two of us,
making more mistakes
than the typical underdog;
Learned my lessons
from the sidelines
and old photographs.

Then there are moments
when childhood smells play their tricks on me—
and I catch your scent.
Like cold oatmeal at breakfast,
or the Sound in September,
or baby shampoo.

~ ~ ~

Kristin Ann Fahlbusch was born January 20, 1983 and grew up in Bayville, New York. She received a BA in English from The George Washington University in 2005, an MS in Adolescence Education with a Specialization in English from Long Island University in 2008 and is currently at work finalizing her thesis for the MFA in Poetry program at The New School. Kristin Ann's writing has been published by: Pirene's Fountain, TimeOutNewYork.com, The NY Post, West View News, THE SOURCE  magazine and Jones Magazine. Her photo work has appeared on: ModernBride.com and The Foundation for Photo/Art in Hospitals, as well as on Scallywagandvagabond.com. She lives and works in New York City.

Thanks to Kristin Ann for sharing her tattoo with us here on the Tattooed Poets Project!

This entry is ©2015 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.

The Tattooed Poets Project: Lisa Marie Basile Launches Our Seventh Annual Installment

We are launching our seventh annual Tattooed Poets Project with Lisa Marie Basile. Lisa and I have been talking about her participating since the fall of 2012, so I was delighted when we were finally able to get a post together for Tattoosday this year.

Lisa Marie has six tattoos, and shared four with us, starting with this one:

The tattoo on her forearm reads "recuerdo la eternidad," which roughly translates to "remember eternity," comes from a line out of a Marosa Di Giorgio poem. "She's my favorite poet," Lisa Marie explains, "and I find the way she talks of nostalgia and good/evil so beautiful." She adds,"This line immediately hit me, and I wanted to always have it with me, in its original language."

Her other arm has a couple tattoos:

Lisa Marie's ampersand (&) sits on her wrist and she explains, "I not only love the shape of this little one, but I think the idea of the ampersand connecting this and that is beautiful."

As for the phrase, "le soleil et la mer," translated as "the sun and the sea," Lisa Marie elaborates:

"[It] comes from The Stranger by Camus. This is one of my favorite books, and I felt very connected to the rage and fear and sorrow the protagonist felt when he was on the beach, under the sun and near the sea. This was my second tattoo and I feel closest to it."

Then there's this word on the back of her upper arm:

Lisa Marie explains:

"witch is a playful one that I got with a friend at midnight in Miami on Friday the 13th. It was all very kismet, actually. We both have the same tattoo (poet Joanna C. Valente) and it, for me, represents the idea of women living through being hunted, scarlet-lettered and hated. It was an impulse tattoo."

She believes that the "&" and "le soleil et la mer" pieces were inked at Whatever Tattoo in Manhattan. The "recuerdo la eternidad" tattoo was done at Eight of Swords in Brooklyn.

The "witch" tattoo was from Salvation Tattoo Lounge in Miami.

By way of a poem, Lisa Marie sent us this work, which first appeared in Stone Highway Review:

Lisa Marie Basile is the author of APOCRYPHAL (Noctuary Press, 2014) and a chapbook, Andalucia. She is the editor-in-chief of Luna Luna Magazine and her poetry and other work can be read in PANK, Tin House's blog, Coldfront, The Nervous Breakdown, The Huffington Post, Best American Poetry, PEN American Center, Dusie, and the Ampersand Review, among others. She’s recently been profiled in The New York Daily News, Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls, Poets & Artists Magazine, Relapse Magazine and others. She’s been nominated for the Best Small Fiction 2015 and Best American Experimental Writing 2015 anthologies, and she holds an MFA from The New School.

Lisa Marie's first full-length just came out: Apocryphal can be purchased on Amazon or at Small Press Distribution.

Thanks to Lisa Marie Basile for helping launch the seventh annual Tattooed Poets Project on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2015 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.

Christin's Exorcism

I was standing in front of Federal Hall, at the corner of Wall Street and Broad, when I noticed two women sitting nearby. One of them had an epic tattoo on her left thigh, so I introduced myself.

The woman’s name was Christin and she was visiting from Germany. Her friend, whose name I never
caught, was very helpful as an interpreter.

Check out the tattoo:

Christin explained that this is a passage, in Latin, from the Bible. More specifically, it refers to a section concerning exorcism, how, in her words, "the blood will drive out the evil and how everything will end up good.”

You can make out the word "Exorcism" behind the written text. The scratches and blood smears are part of the tattoo design.

The artist responsible is Emrah from Lausbub Tattoo in Heilbronn, Germany. When I reached out to him about the piece, he knew exactly which one I was talking about. "I love this tatt," he said, "but I never ever would do it again ... because of the tiny lettering."

When I asked Christin why she got this huge, intricate tattoo she said (through her friend, interpreting):

"There are two stories: One, the show Supernatural kind of got her on this idea. So that’s what brought her on the general idea of looking into what it is, reading up on it. And she kind of was fucking up her life a little bit much and so this was her way of putting her life back on the proper road so when she looks at it she knows I can’t go down that route again." 

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

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.