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Tattoo Poetry: Inked with an Author Prompt

By T.S. Poetry 3 Comments

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.

______

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

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Filed Under: Grief Poems, love poems, love poetry, Tattoo Poems, Tattoos, Themed Writing Projects, writer's group resources, writing prompts

Comments

  1. Maureen Doallas says

    September 9, 2013 at 10:14 am

    I like the contrast between “got me going” and “So what happened….”

    Reply
  2. Maureen Doallas says

    September 10, 2013 at 8:17 am

    A new tattoo poem: ‘Born in the Year of the Dragon’:
    http://writingwithoutpaper.blogspot.com/2013/09/born-in-year-of-dragon-poem.html

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Lacewings Lament/ Mike Jewett | Fry Your Friends says:
    August 4, 2014 at 12:52 pm

    […] most recently in Orion Magazine with Sally J. Johnson, Lyrical Somerville, Nostrovia! Poetry, tweetspeak,VerseWrights, and The Bitchin’ Kitsch. In 2013 he won first and third place in poetry contests. […]

    Reply

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