The Tattooed Poets Project: Adam Hughes

Today's tattooed poet is Adam Hughes, who is sharing this piece from his rib cage on his right side:

This is the complete text of the poem "And the Days are not Full Enough" by Ezra Pound.

It reads

"And the days are not full enough
and the nights are not full enough
and life slips by like a field mouse
not shaking the grass."

Adam tells us:

"I was tattooed by Benjamin Thornburg at Thou Art Studios in Lancaster, Ohio. I wanted some piece of poetry tattooed and found this particular Pound poem to be really profound in a surprising way. For me it's a reminder that we so often live lives of fluff, of immaterial things; lives that ultimately leave no trace and leave behind nothing that matters. It's a reminder that I don't want to live that kind of life. The I want to live a life that shakes the grass, that makes an impact."

With that sentiment in mind, Adam shared the following poem:

Hideous the Scars of Beauty and I, Impaled

for my daughter

the horses’ eyes are sad, but not
sorrowful—they look not with fear,
but with the experience of the long married—
they’re waiting patiently for the stars to fall
so they might eat them off the tips of the grass

do not cry about things beyond your fingertips—
the deaths of a thousand glinting wasps—
the frosted, the wilted, the broken, the rheumy-eyed—
the world is not dying—it is shedding its skin

do not fear the undergrowth beyond
the first row of trees—it’s dark but many have walked
there before you—their footsteps still crunch
if you stop your breathing long enough to listen—
you’re never far from something beautiful

when it rains for days, and it appears God forgot
to separate the waters that week, remember me
wherever I am and know that I tried—
the rain doesn’t win or lose—it just drops
when it’s told to drop, like baby robins from the nest,
some flying, some falling, all changed

~ ~ ~

Adam Hughes is the author of Petrichor (NYQ Books, 2010) and Uttering the Holy (NYQ Books, 2012). He was born in 1982 in Lancaster, Ohio. He still resides near there on a farm with his wife and daughter, two dogs, four cats, and four horses. He works as a drug prevention specialist with high school students. Should you google him, he is not the Adam Hughes who draws near-pornographic depictions of female superheroes. He cannot draw.

Thanks to Adam for sharing his tattoo and poem with us here on The Tattooed Poets Project!

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