CITY OF ANGELS.....on Camden

Hunger Games Comic

Just recently released movie "Hunger Games" is popular and somebody has come up with the comic..

Some recent neck tattoos

Illinois Tattoo Expo Calendar 2012

Welcome to the Illinois Tattoo Expo Calendar 2012. The state of Illinois is going to have a few but good Tattoo Expos this year. Featuring great and famous Tattoo Artists, these Tattoo Conventions will have an astounding impact in national news and media. Illinois residents and tattoo tourists...



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The Tattooed Poets Project: Andrea England

Our next tattooed poet is Andrea England, who submitted this photo of her tattoo:

Andrea explains:

"In 2001, I was able to take a trip to Ireland, the place of my mother’s ancestry, a place that she regretted never having visited. When I returned from Ireland I decided to tattoo her maiden initials on my arm in the original Celtic font used in The Book of Kells; CFM stands for Catherine Fallon McGinnis.

Chameleon in Harvard Square was my choice shop. The funny part is I had a difficult time convincing the artist to work on the inside of my arm. He kept asking me, 'Are you sure you want it there? You aren’t going to be able to hide it. Are you sure you don’t want a smaller font?' After some heckling, he gave me what I wanted. I take pride that she is there, and can’t hide from me or the world."

Here is one of Andrea's poems:



Discourse of Bric-a-brac



Insomnia in a twin bed,

the screech of brakes before

inevitable. Like the stray dog

gigolo, tags intact, jangling,

neighbors clamoring over each.

Who locked whom out. Get out.

Last time. The woo before sex, the sex,

the prayer you will drift asleep first

and the skateboard wheel as it fills each rut

in the walk just before the little boy falls.



Oklahoma City, the morning after

snow when you’ve only thin sandals.

That cold burning you thought you could

control by sleeping in separate beds,

stingray on the beach, insides pecked out,

still breathing and that sad miracle.

It’s disregarding the phone at 4am,

the trill of it or the painter in the dream

when he whispers, You can open your mouth

if you want to. This indecision.



Because your roommate would kill the spiders

behind the blinds, because the dishes in the sink

are desire and desire clutter.

Because in the sixth grade you wore

deodorant but no scent, underwear in the shower,

and watched the cool kids kiss formulas

out of each other after school. It’s because

by Darwin’s calculations we’re still here

surviving, fit to love best uneven,

even when there’s no love left.

~ ~ ~

Andrea England is a student, a mother, poet, and teacher, who resides in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Her work has appeared, or is forthcoming in, Passages North, Cutthroat Magazine, The DMQ Review, RHINO, and others. Dogs and cold, snowy winters are also worth mentioning as objects of her affection.



Thanks to Andrea for sharing her work with us here on Tattoosday!



This entry is ©2012 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.

In the school

A first-grade teacher, Ms. Walker, was having trouble with one of her students.
The teacher asked, 'Johnson, what's your problem?'
Johnson answered, 'I'm too smart for the 1st grade. My sister is in the 3rd grade
and I'm smarter than she is! I think I should?be in the 3rd grade too!'

Ms. Walker had had enough. She took Johnson to the principal's office.

While Johnson waited in the outer office, the teacher explained to the principal
what the situation was. The principal told Ms. Walker he would give the boy a
test. If he failed to answer any of his questions he was to go back to the 1st
grade and behave. She agreed.

Johnson was brought in and the conditions were explained to him and he agreed to
take the test.
Principal: 'What is 3 x 3?'
Johnson: '9.'

Principal: 'What is 6 x 6?'
Johnson: '36.'

And so it went with every question the principal thought a 3rd grader should
know.
The principal looks at Ms. Walker and tells her, 'I think Johnson can go to the
3rd grade.'

Ms. Walker says to the principal, 'Let me ask him some questions.'
The principal and Johnson both agreed.

Ms. Walker asks, 'What does a cow have four of that I have only two of?'
Johnson, after a moment: 'Legs.'
Ms Walker: 'What is in your pants that you have but I do not have?'
The principal wondered why would she ask such a question!
Johnson replied: 'Pockets.'
Ms. Walker: 'What does a dog do that a man steps into?'
Johnson: 'Pants..'
Ms. Walker: What starts with a C, ends with a T, is hairy, oval, delicious and
contains thin, whitish liquid?'
Johnson: 'Coconut.'
The principal sat forward with his mouth hanging open.
Ms. Walker: 'What goes in hard and pink then comes out soft and sticky?'
The principal's eyes opened really wide and before he could stop the answer,
Johnson replied, 'Bubble gum.'
Ms. Walker: 'What does a man do standing up, a woman does sitting down and a dog does on three legs?'
Johnson: 'Shake hands.'
The principal was trembling.
Ms. Walker: 'What word starts with an 'F' and ends in 'K' that means a lot of
heat and excitement?'
Johnson: 'Firetruck.'
The principal breathed a sigh of relief and told the teacher, 'Put Johnson in the
fifth-grade, I got the last seven questions wrong.....'

The Tattooed Poets Project: Karrie Waarala

Our next tattooed poet is Karrie Waarala, who chose to share this stunning tattoo:

Located on her upper right arm, Karrie explained the origin of this art:

“This tattoo is a painting by my favorite artist, Franz Marc, whose career full of bold, colorful animals was cut far too short by his death in World War I. I had known I wanted a Marc tattoo for some time and had been shopping around for the right artist to do the work. I was getting a variety of unsatisfactory answers to my queries until I brought the design to Matt Hessler, who owns XS Tattoo in Rochester, MI. He knows art, liked the project, and he's done all of my work since.”

The painting replicated in the tattoo is called “The Tiger” and dates to 1912, one hundred years ago.

As Karrie shared this tattoo, she chose the following poem, which originally appeared in Arsenic Lobster:




For Franz Marc, on the Occasion of His Thirty-Sixth Birthday

           (February 8, 1880 – March 4, 1916, Verdun)

Was it a day like the crush of all days,

soot and stink smearing hours into each other,
death marching on spindly legs across trenches,
palette reduced to churned mud, choked sky,
crusted blood on gunmetal.

Did you steal any slaughter moments,
borrow butcher’s pigments long enough
to catch war’s angry tigers, pour them
haphazard into kaleidoscopes,
or push the peasant heft of draft horses
deftly through sharp prism angles.

Did any of your singed nape hairs stir
hint at the slow whistle of incoming days,
head bursting into spray of colors
thrumming with life as your canvases,
while orders flapped on insufficient wings
declaring you too vital to be ground into France.

Did you hear the animals weep?

~ ~ ~

Karrie Waarala holds an MFA from the Stonecoast Program at University of Southern Maine and is a teaching artist at The Rooster Moans poetry cooperative. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in journals such as Iron Horse Literary Review, PANK, The Collagist, Arsenic Lobster, and Radius. In addition to a Pushcart Prize nomination for her poetry, Karrie has received critical acclaim for her one-woman show, LONG GONE: A Poetry Sideshow, which is based on her collection of poems about the circus. She really wishes she could tame tigers and swallow swords. 

Thanks again to Karrie for sharing her tattoo and poem with us here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2012 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.

Florida Tattoo Expo Calendar 2012

Welcome to the Florida Tattoo Expo Calendar 2012. Among surfers, yachts and jet skies, Florida residents are going to experience some of the most astounding Tattoo Expos in America. Probably they are few in numbers but, for sure, they will be an amazing and fantastic experience to talk about.

More...



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Arizona Tattoo Expo Calendar 2012

This is the Arizona Tattoo Expo Calendar 2012. For your highest good, Tattoo Lovers, Arizona is going to have some of the best Tattoo Events in the United States of America. Great Tattoo Conventions to assist to in company of your friends and to talk about throughout the week. Check this calendar...



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The Tattooed Poets Project: Eric Morago

This morning's tattooed poet is Eric Morago, who shares these lines of verse from his forearm:

I am a BIG Charles Bukowski fan, so I immediately recognized these lines ("what matters most / is how you / walk through the / fire") when I saw the photo.

Eric explains:

"The tattoo is taken from a the title of a collection of poems 

by Charles Bukowski. 

 I got [the tattoo] over Thanksgiving break at a local tattoo shop (Body Art Tattoo) in my hometown of Whittier, CA during my first semester of grad school.  I had just finished grading a bunch of papers as well as writing my own for a class and was just overwhelmed by what the next two years had in store for me that I wanted to do something commemorate the struggle ahead.  So that when all was said and done, M.F.A in hand, there was also tangible proof (besides a piece of paper) for what I had I succeeded in obtaining.  And the words would be a damn good reminder on those occasions where papers and grading and thesis deadlines loomed in the distance." 

By way of poetry, Eric offers up this tattoo-related gem:

ENTANGLED

A beautiful portrait of destruction,

her back is tattooed from shoulder

to shoulder—a giant octopus tears

boats apart with unworldly tendrils.

This turns me on.  I am a prepubescent

again thinking I’ve found ambrosia

between the pages of Victoria’s Secret

catalogues.  I get dizzy, lost in fantasy.

How though its body is submerged

in murky water, hidden by shading,

I believe the monster is winking at me.

I sit, imagine freckles into tiny frenzied

sailors jumping ship into the dark of her

skin, sinking down spine’s curve,

drowning, or falling into the creature’s

waiting, open-beaked mouth.  I would

never tell her any of this, of course.

Better she stay in the peep, a shadowy

figure of myth.  And like a yarn-spinning

seadog swearing by fantastical beasts—

all tentacles, sharp snouted and snarl

toothed—I too am ensnared, imagination

entangled in the suction-cupped arms

of wanting.  It is all I can do to fight,

struggle being pulled under an inky

veil where our eyes can clearly meet,

where any and all mystique is gone.

~ ~ ~

Eric Morago is a Pushcart Prize-nominated poet who believes performance carries as much importance on the page, as it does off. Currently Eric is an an associate reviewer for Poetix.net, poet-in-residence with California WorkforceAssociation, and teaches workshops for Red Hen Press’ Writing in the Schools program. 

His first full length collection of poetry and prose entitled, What We Ache For, is available from Moon Tide Press. Eric holds an MFA in Creative Writing from California State University, Long Beach and lives to write in Whittier, CA.

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

This entry is ©2012 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.

April Fools Joke or Prank

My mother lives 10 minutes from me and i drove to her house well she was at work went in and cut the power to her house by simply turning off the breakers..
Mom got home from work and instead of checking the breaker box she calls penalec..
3 hours later they show up test her lines and everything saying power is coming into the house and the guy checks the breaker box.. he said ma'am your breakers were all turned off..

So he simply flipped them back on and gave my mother a slip of paper.. This paper stated "40 dollar truck charge." I call my mom and found out what happened and I told her April Fools.. She tells me about the slip of paper with the ammount need to pay for it.. I felt bad went over and gave her the 40 dollars and she takes it and looks at me and says april fools and slams the door in my face!

:)

I told my mate that I was going to be a daddy (I'm 17) and she believed me till i said 'APRIL FOOLS' like 4hrz later. wbu wbb?

The Tattooed Poets Project: Noelle Kocot

We are launching this, our fourth year of celebrating tattooed poets for National Poetry Month, with the work of an amazingly talented writer, Noelle Kocot. I had first approached Noelle about participating last year, but it never came to fruition.This year, however, we were able to pull it together.



First, here's a glimpse of Noelle's tattoo:

As tattoos go, this is fairly simple and straight forward. It's the name "Damon," but it's not just any name.

Damon Tomblin  was Noelle's husband, who died on March 10, 2004. She had his name memorialized in December, later that year. This is her only tattoo.  I'd point you to this page from dewclaw journal to read a little more from Noelle about Damon, and hear a few movements from a sonata Damon composed.

Noelle offered us the following poem, which originally appeared in Tin House, and was later included in her book Sunny Wednesday:

12^th Wedding Anniversary



Jailed and decreased, my doughnuts rise.

 Have a feather, don’t ask why,

 There is a Coney Island in my eye.

 Hair and plaid rabbits,

 Anniversal belief is the strongest to go

 Over a listless sky, a prevenient frost.

 Let’s go to the Cloisters

 And all you can eat sushi

 My tattoo should be healed now.

 Dear, you are a norming legend in the kitty-star.

 I eat for two, on the evening of

 We knew each other before our faces and our names.

~ ~ ~

Noelle Kocot is the author of five full-length collections of poetry, including most recently, The Bigger World (Wave Books, 2011) and Sunny Wednesday ( Wave Books, 2009). She has also recently published a limited-edition collection of translations of the poems of Tristan Corbière, as Poet By Default ( Wave Books, 2011). Kocot has received numerous honors for her poetry, including a NEA fellowship and inclusion in The Best American Poetry 2001 and 2011.





Thanks to Noelle for her contribution, and helping us launch this, our fourth year of the Tattooed Poets Project!

This entry is ©2012 Tattoosday. Photos courtesy of Noelle Kocot. Poem reprinted with the author'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.