In the skin

I want to know what tales your tattoos can tell.
Write a poem about your body art. Why you chose each piece and where you put it. Is there an overall theme or progression? Are there memorial tributes, favorite quotes, spiritual elements, poems, kanji, flowers, cartoons, bits of whimsy? What style have you chosen (traditional, biomechanical, tribal, flash, portrait, gray wash, etc.)

1 entry each, new poems or prose only.

No collabs.

No word limit, but I am not asking for a novella.

Good luck!

Six Dots


Six Dots, my tattoo,
The ink is sea-blue.
Three on the top,
To mark where to stop,
Three down below
For how far to go.
Tiny, they are
Like freckles, by far,
You might nearly miss them
Lest you know where to find them.
Positioned, rectangle
To get the right angle
Each day after day
For a dose of the rays
That burned my chest red,
‘Til the cancer was dead.
Yes, I have ink,
But not like you think;
This type was not wanted
It just leaves me haunted.
I still smell ozone
From when I was alone
In the lead-lined room
‘Neath  the accelerator boom
As it rotated around
With harsh, buzzing sounds,
Frying, and frying
So I would not be dying.

Thank you for kicking off the competition Madame Lavender.

http://cdn.kveller.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/holocaust-tattoo.jpg


THE TATOO

Tattoos wear badly as you age

A free one was offered

So I had a series of lucky numbers

Placed on my inner arm

To make sure I looked like my mother

Hers were 666-666- HITLER

Having been through it she was bitter

So I decided to look for sacred numbers:

18 – 108 – CHAI

Now I too wear these tiny numbers

In memory of

Those who survived

But mostly for those who did not.

EVERYTHING

Drawn into revelations,

a chapter on the death of creation.

An angel spoke unto John,

so he began to write it down.

The angel stopped him midst his write,

and said"Those words are not for sight".

I've always wondered what she said,

and why that moment was put in pen?

John didn't have to put that in,

but for reasons unknown,he did.

I fought with mind for years to come.

I asked the scholars,prayed to God.

Till someone told me in simple terms,

the lesson that was to be learned.

The reason that was for us to read,

was to teach us,we're not to know everything.

Thank you for your entries Kitty and Jasper.

http://media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/192x/78/9d/d4/789dd4d775c9fe64c3ef0c781c51205b.jpg

My Body Bares It All

My body like the rest of me bares the marks of
Madness,and salvation yet to come

Born of men but never accepted as them
Kidnapped
Yet cast away by humanity

Alien even to those who would shelter me
Look at his lips
His hair
Skin

Mowgli's story was my own
Told in a Tribal circle

The tiger cuts the flesh of my right arm
The thief and abductor
Who cast me out from humanity
He seeks exaltation  in my demonization

The panther, my teacher, fights the slithering serpent on my left
Who feeds on those he petrifies
My mother, the alpha of our pack, watches over it all

The bear covers my heart
My protector who reminds me,

They hate thee because their eyes cannot meet thine
Thou hast pulled thorns from their feet
Because thou art a man

My body like the rest of me bares the marks of
Battles fought, and death yet to come

So I drank from waters meant to refresh
Then she pulled me under swiftly

A magnificent mermaid
Seductress
I tethered frantically in the grasp of her tentacles

Eventually I drowned in her
With her
Blindly suffocating
Died so I could be reborn
Redrawn

She gripped my back to pull me in deeper
Caressed it, tracing the welts of  lashes and burden
And left her silhouette there  

My body like the rest of me bares the marks of
Passion found in blood and pain
And tranquility  yet to come

Quote from Ruyard Kipling's The Jungle Book

Pictured my full back tattoo

one cut two cut three cut four
emo now n forevernevermore
tattooed on me like a slave brand
only i did it myself
with my own lovin hand

asking me why i couldnt fuckin die
its a question i review and revise sometimes
but so far all i've got is a piss poor rhyme

funny to tell it
and what's funny is true
the purpose of me
is i'm worthless like you

that's how you know you've got junkieism, but i'm still going to marry an architect

first
18 stars
on my "write" arm
with a moon now
that will all tie in someday
to the entire solar system
because they say
i'm stuck in the clouds

but if i could just reach up
and touch them
i'd sure feel a lot better.

second
a hummingbird
on my neck
to remind me
of the childhood
i'll never be able
to burn off.

third
a celtic symbol for protection
branded on my left foot
so i'm safe
in all my travels.

fourth and fifth
the researched and very accurate
chinese symbol
for double happiness
because who doesn't
need more of that?

and the probably accurate
chinese symbol
for peace
just because
it looked nifty.

sixth
a lone tigerlily on my shoulder
that will someday,
grow into an entire bouquet
to feed the hummingbird
for a whole lifetime
until my skin has withered away
after i'm dead.    

what's on our bodies after that
won't matter much
so why fret it now?
will i really look any better at 80
with unmarked skin?
will anybody?
it's nothing a little winter
and an attractive personality
can't fix.

seventh
it's been five years
so we walked into the shop
sat in the chairs
and on one of our wrists
we each got
a half of the yin yang
your's white
mine black
with a coy fish
your's black
mine white
wrapped around.

we swore no matter what
we'd never cover it up,
or get the other half

if this doesn't work out
we want to be scarred with the memory
that it ever happened, at all.

next
something on my lower back
i asked him
what he'd like best.
i still don't know yet,
but i'm sure
i'll figure it out.

then
i'll probably never touch my legs
stomach or chest

but all the rest, of me
is just the empty spaces
i feel more uncomfortable with
then a too big of commitment.

Tattoo's and Fairytales

There's a blood drop
on the pointed end
of an anvil, shiny
sparkling

I'm not sure if the message is conveyed
There's a knife stuck in my back!
It's
from another time
so long gone now
but I inked that in
to the tattoo within
to remind me never to be fooled again
a black jaguar
sleek in a heart
bruised purple and blue
covered in blood drops
yes, it's quite crude
a bit scary
I've heard from many
but not so much as the one
on my wedding finger
the symbol for eternity
that was stupid
I even said to me, at the time
smoked a spliff and went inside
it's kinda funny in hindsight
that I never really believed
but if I ever ink another
it'll be about none other
than me

Miki, Lacey, Anna, and Wolf, thank you very much for your entries. This is getting tough. I'm loving the entries so far!

I'm tattooless. :(

Bummer :/

if'n any fella was right for the small of the back tattoo (tramp stamp), I reckon you, Mr. A, are that fella.

sorry Aish, I will fill this space more usefully later...

Lol!!!
Thanks for that visual of Mr.A, which manifested kind of like a scene from "Silence of the Lambs".