In this week’s Top 10 Poetic Picks, we noted tattoo poetry with a literary twist—from poetic quotes to author love (somebody out there has an Atwood, a Whitman, Shakespeare and Plath).

Poetry Prompt

Do you have a favorite author? What if you could somehow ink that author onto your skin? Would you use words, pictures, both? Get inked with your author; give us a poem that tells the tale.

Thanks to our participants in last week’s poetry prompt. Here’s a recent Tattoo poem we enjoyed from Mike…

Tattoos & Cigarettes

I remember when you were all
Tattoos & cigarettes
For me-

Cherries and swallows inked on your skin
You knew how tattoos got me going
Especially on you.

How you used to light a Marlboro
With a devilish grin
And blow your smoke right at me

Maybe a few smoky kisses,
Sexy in your scally cap
While you’d snap inhale

Huge white balls of smoke
Popping out of your mouth,
Right back in,

God how I loved that,
And you knew how your smoking got me going-
Your smoking was always the sexiest.

In our little barn
You’d show off your new tattoos
Smiling like the sun.

So what happened to
The tattoos & cigarettes
We used to share?

—Mike Jewett

Call for Tattoo Photos for September Poetry Prompts

Do you have a tattoo? Are you willing to photograph it and share the photo with us, for possible use for our September poetry prompts? (Our September theme is tattoos.) If so, please share via Twitter or Pinterest and give us an @tspoetry or @EDaypoems, so we can find the share.)

Photo by A.K. Photography Creative Commons, via Flickr.

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Sometimes we feature your poems in Every Day Poems, with your permission of course. Thanks for writing with us!

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