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Ink
A lot of people nowadays adorn
The spotless skin they had when they were born.
While many think it’s smart to gild a lily,
Dissenters deem this practice downright silly.
As beauty’s in the vision of the gazer,
Mistakes can be corrected with a laser.
Now, when it comes to choosing body-art,
There’s something right for every body part.
Though some get by with just a sleeve or vest,
A neck or face tattoo is often best.
When patches of blank skin are deemed a waste,
To each according to the whims of taste.
A message or an image is just fine,
And so is some ornate abstract design.
Just why they do it, one should never ask,
Because it’s rude to peer beneath a mask.
Aesthetics takes a leap, one must suppose,
Where ink shows up on skin from head to toes.
With piercings done through every lobe and crease,
One’s hide becomes a stunning masterpiece.
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The Eternal World Order
For every Jesus there’s a rugged cross;
For each Napoleon, a Waterloo.
All sedentary stones must gather moss,
And mariners shall wear an albatross.
A Hercules has labors yet to do;
Employees need to listen to their boss.
Indignities, you see, are nothing new,
And sundry ills are always stalking you.
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C.B. Anderson was the longtime gardener for the PBS television series, The Victory Garden. Hundreds of his poems have appeared in scores of print and electronic journals out of North America, Great Britain, Ireland, Austria, Australia and India. His collection, Mortal Soup and the Blue Yonder was published in 2013 by White Violet Press.
“Ink” is a stunning masterpiece, C. B., composed of ten couplets that each might have been an independent proverb on the topic. The pierced hide in the final one makes a most effective conclusion.
Wisdom style surfaces again in “The Eternal World Order.” It offers consolation to anyone feeling stalkers at his back. That could include employees who must listen to their boss (especially in certain business establishments) and not have tattoos visible while on the job. Or they could proceed to the offices of Dr. Tattoff, who has a well-established practice in this area.
Thanks for the well written fun!
You are, Margaret, hard to please (a quality that I consider a cardinal virtue), which makes your approval all the more valuable to me. And I like how you tie one poem to the other. for I generally try to inject some thematic contiguity in my multiple submissions. I am particularly interested in your reference to “Wisdom style,” because I didn’t know that that was a thing.
Wisdom books in the Bible (or wise sayings in any ancient culture) are the prototype. One of the earliest forms of forms and styles in poetry.
I particularly love the lampooning satire of “Ink.” Skin was never meant for art; that’s what I think. “The Eternal World Order” seems to include the randomness and unaccounted for act of being stalked as I interpret your message.
I am neutral, Roy, on whether persons should decorate their natural skin. I only know that it’s not for me. And no, I only meant that, as they say, shit happens.
Thanks for these 2, CB.
When my older brother came home on shore leave in ~1965, my mother was appalled that he’d gotten a small dagger tattoo on his forearm. She even browbeat him to get it removed. (Not the smaller one on his calf, though.) If she could see the state of things today! The thing is, people treat their skin as their property, not as something they’re given. I wince at the thought of Beyonce or Gong Li in their respective primes, sporting tattoos. But even when the bearer honestly thinks of a tattoo as an enhancement, their permanence makes me shudder.
The 2nd has a slight ring of Ecclesiastes in a lighter than usual mood.
I remember, Julian, when my Uncle Ernie came home with a purple heart and some telling tattoos. My female relatives were horrified. My Uncle Bob, a decade later, after a hitch in the Navy, came home similarly decorated. They are both dead now, and I am left with memories. Some say that life sucks and then you die; others say that life is great, but then you die. Being alive is definitely a good thing.
Julian, I love your comparison of this poem to Ecclesiastes. Similar thoughts, expressed in different ways.
C.B., your poems always entice me and give me something to think about. I like the cool detachment of the narrator – the subtle approach seems to make the observations in each more striking. I love the way your ink piles on the body-art imagery until the “spotless” akin-to-a-lily “skin” of the opening couplets becomes a “hide” in the closing couplet, diluting the term “stunning masterpiece” beautifully.
My favorite is “The Eternal World Order” – the burden of being human and the unavoidable struggle is all part of the journey. I especially like the “sedentary stones and moss” – even those passive souls not braving dangerous storms and changing the world have their mossy cross to bear.
C.B., thank you for your wry and dry poetic wisdom. I’m all the wiser for reading it.
Jeezus, Susan, I didn’t know I’d done all that, and I’m pleased that you noticed. You know as well as I do that poetic imagination has no limits that are not self-imposed. That’s why we climb out on limbs of our own making.
I believe that your “Ink” poem may be the first of its kind. If I’m not mistaken, European explorers discovered the art of tattoo among the natives of South Pacific islands. I have a book about Captain Cook’s travels with illustrations of the same.
I’m neutral on the subject of cultural appropriation, Cheryl, but Cook saw what he saw.
Both poems are fun and entertaining to read, thank you. I find the proliferation of tattoos in our culture equally as amusing as it is concerning. The concern of course is the toxicity of the ink, which can cause cancer and inflammation. The amusement is caused by all the folk who regret their choice of artwork and bemoan the state of deterioration of their old tattoos, which turn into wrinkly ink blots after a few decades, while they try to decide on new artwork to cover up their old mistakes.
Yeah, Yael, cadmium yellow is probably not a good thing. The last thing I need to worry about these days is the market value of my own skin.
These are perfect little couplets that can stand alone, if necessary. What unites them is juxtaposition on the page, a single subject (“Ink”), and an easygoing contempt for the fad of brutalizing one’s skin with indelible colors. Since the practice has now become fairly widespread, Kip has sensibly kept his low opinion of tattooing in a minor key, rather than attacking it robustly.
Somewhere in the archives here at the SCP I have a longer piece on the same subject, titled “Freakish Tattooing.” I suppose there is a difference between a freakish indulgence in the practice, and having some small mark or design put in an unobtrusive spot of one’s body.
The only tattoo I have, Joseph, is from the graphite point of a pencil that entered my cheek during a pencil joust with a friend in junior high. I can’t stand needles of any kind, for the record, which is only one reason I never got the covid jab. The other reason was that Biden & Fauci telling me I should was sufficient reason not to.
Much enjoyed “Eternal World Order,” C.B., but the star here has to be “Ink.” These are indeed superb couplets, C.B., which are as marvelous for their perfect, detached tone as for their craft. You manage to take a snapshot of a cultural phenomenon associated with, but necessarily central to, our culture wars and comment on its existence without harsh judgment (albeit with muted indications of your personal taste.)
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a poem on this subject before (I’ll have to check out Joe Salemi’s poem mentioned above.) You are in good company on this offbeat subject matter however. Ray Bradbury wrote an entire book — The Illustrated Man — in which each chapter is a stand-alone story which springs from each one of the tattoos of the tattooed man at the freak show in the circus. I can only think of one tattoo-themed song: your tone is quite different, but I am reminded of the raucous “Lydia, the Tattooed Lady” immortalized by Groucho Marx and written (if you can believe it) by Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg — the same guys who wrote Over the Rainbow and the other songs from The Wizard of Oz.
Brian, that Ray Bradbury book was made into a film starring Rod Steiger and Claire Bloom. She tattoos his body, and eventually they make love in between the inking sessions. It is a truly weird film.
I discovered “Ink” in a file folder containing several poems rejected by another venue, which I had neglected to move to my active file for several years. I need more lucky days like that.
Just a few more tidbits of information: Sydney Parkinson, an artist on Captain Cook’s voyages, produced images of New Zealand’s Maori, showing the chief and his son with their faces covered in geometric and circular tattoos. Women also wore tattoos. Captain Bligh made particular notes about the crew. Mutineer Fletcher Christian marked his chest and buttocks; other sailors began to tattoo their bodies as a way to record their travels.
I love hearing about this kind of thing. If you ever come across an old book called The Secret Museum of Mankind, snap it up.
I really liked “Ink”, C. B. It was delightful, and I like how you maintained your neutrality in the poem. I differ from Margaret, though, as regards the last couple. I think that introducing a new topic (piercings) blunts the power of the poem.
I am in a “mixed marriage” in that I am very pro-Ink and my wife is very much against it. I was very influenced in middle age by Flannery O’Connor’s short story, “Parker’s Back” … highly recommended. Following the example of O. E. Parker in Flannery’s story, I got a large stained-glass head of Christ (with crown of thorns and bleeding palms) done on my back, but not until I was 54 years of age.
Here is a poem I wrote about getting my first tattoo:
https://hotrodanglican.blogspot.com/2012/08/tattoo-poem.html
Even though I don’t like tattoos, C.B., I really like your poem, mainly because it makes me smile. In your second poem, I got a real kick out of your humorous take on “A rolling stone gathers no moss.” “Sedentary stones” is a funny phrase. And your expression of some of the ideas explored by “The Preacher” of Ecclesiastes, is very creative.