Like pokies they stuck always out, never afraid
To show that they were here to stay for all to see.

A tattoo of a bow caressed her cleavage, the tattooist
Even though not meaning rubbed pokies to much.

Ending with a happy customer, a damp seat and a wet floor.

BRUSH

Brush free the carpet
of mud and fluff.

Let’s brush off the hurtful comment too,
that snide remark, those graceless words.

We’re cleaning yet collecting,
straightening up, taking out the dirt.
Repositioning dust. Always temporary,
never the same, brush, brush,
to and fro, again – again - again.


SCOOP

The ice cream tub has one
to make the portion fair
for that ever-observant,
pernickety child.

When walking the dog,
we scoop the ****.
carrying the plastic bag
to the waiting wanting bin.

Yet the all-important wooden
scoop is made from a block
of a 2 by 3, with chisel, gouge
and a steady hand.

This farmer’s friend, this open spoon,
lives in darkness and under the lid
of the deep grain bin,
to feed white chickens.


POKE

Getting it out,
placing it right –
but much is trial & error.
If it won’t go in,
give it a poke . . .
and it might.

Nowadays it’s a software app
to help you cheat at on-line games
and , God forbid, an important tool
in the tattooist’s bag – the hand poke,
liner and shader with standard
8 – 32 thumb screws and
completely autoclave able.


CUT

Hogwimpering drunk
or ****** out of mind.
Seventies slang for
individual incapacitation.

A cut can hurt,
display the inner
through incision
in the outer.
Reveals, opens up,
allows a division from
one to another.

This cut of meat on the slab?
For you, madam?
I can cut it up
nice and small
for the baby to chew.


RAKE

Lying there in the long summer grass,
it needs standing up, its teeth cleaned.
When autumn comes it redeems itself,
clearing the path, letting the lawn breath.

In the hand of sculptor, ceramicist, modeller
it fashions variously, cuts, pulls away, gouges,
scrapes, a multi-purpose stick with two ends:
of wrapped wire, of ribboned steel.


LOOK

To make sure it’s right:
correct and straight,
balanced, in proportion.
The magnifier helps,
the camera too,
getting the angle,
the position , the light
gauged . . . with a little looking.
You have to look,
see?


HIT

Whatever needs placing firmly,
needs fixing permanently,
can do with a hit (or two).
A nail with a hammer,
a door with a foot,
it could be a winner,
and right on target,
strike out the opposition,
disable the enemy.
A killer noun.
I prefer the verb.

Once there was a mad Arabian poet,
he said,
who wrote a Book of Death
and an Unsettling Couplet
and inspired him
in the way that a car-wreck
may inspire a tattooist’s
gruesome designs.

O, the frightening things
that ran through his mind!
So unsettled was he,
so disturbed.
O, the way that they leered
at his table they dined!
So confused were his colleagues,
so perturbed.

God, the things that came creeping
in the early hours of dawn
when the town was asleep
and the moon was forlorn.
How he tossed in his sleep –
Was it sleep? was it real?
There were Things he did see
there were Things he did feel.

Lovecraft, Lovecraft –
my quiet recluse –
why are you so pale?
Pray tell. What phantom-horror
did you see in the night?
Why are you so blue?
Why do you shake? Are you
ill, are you sad, are you
broken in the mind?

But all of the doctors,
the scientists, the friends,
THEY COULD NOT REALISE
the horror, the nightmares,
the Things in the dark.

Escape through your head
through the blood-and-ink stained alleyways
within. Retire to your room
with a pen and an electric light.
Try as you might
not all of your stories with
their horror that some find unspeakable,
others disturbing –
THEY CANNOT EXPRESS
that pure form of fear
your mind feels at the idea
of the mad Arab’s couplet.

*That is not dead which can eternal lie
And with strange aeons, even death may die.

The Anti-Monk

Resurrect a tribal passion, when the needle threads the skin after each wince the pain screams that this canvas is art happening. An art so ancient, an art so ancient; nuturing itself like a child alongside ourselves developing traditions that encompass every mountain on ourselves to only just a small patch of grassland on ourselves. The true tattooist's masochism has no bounds, well except maybe brands, a decision about your portrait of self only your choice will imagine. Paint my self reflection upon myself, the aethetics will please me.

Suppress a primal ugre, where the mind threads between the skin after calm the tranquility whispers that this temple is peaceful, still. A practice so ancient, a practice so ancient, festering itself like a ***** alongside ourselves deccelerating rituals that encompass every valley on ourselves to only just  a summit of our plateau on ourselves. The true monk's bounds has no art, well except maybe botany, a decision about your portrait of self only your choice will imagine. Meditate my self reflection upon myself, the anaesthetic will soothe me.


An Anthesis and a Monk

On Camera

My life is like a movie

Seeing that replica Mustang roll in and crash at the airshow

My life is like a movie
Witnessing an ex dealer who'd just been shot in his home

My life is like a movie

Viewing Oldham riots on TV that were five minutes away

My life is like a movie

Gazing down upon Manila Bay at the enduring sunrise from Bataan

My life is like a movie

Observing different people and cultures in a dozen countries

My life is like a movie

Glancing at my thigh as the tattooist inks my goth girl tattoo

My life is like a movie

Noticing the Mancunian drunks fighting on the nightbus home

My life is like a movie

Gaping in desolation at the coffin that contains my mum

My life is like a movie

Watching the mad Irish man loop the Grumman Duck in Murphy's Law

My life is like a movie

Admiring the **** girls I've nailed in the big bakery

My life is like a movie

Scrutinizing the Asians to see if they'll try to assault me


My life is like a movie
Eyeballing my soon to be ex friend who's kissing my girlfriend
My life is like a movie
Focusing on the road ahead as I illegally race the other car
My life is like a movie
Staring at the men lying by the kerb wondering are they dead?
My life is like a movie
Studying the vertical cliff above me to find a way up
My life is like a movie
Peering into the sky to find my dad's ghost that's up there
My life is like a movie
Scanning at my wage slip to see if my pay will cover my beer and bills
My life is like a movie
Regarding my mate who just vomited up his kebab and chips
My life is like a movie
Glimpsing the chavs fighting the teenage couple over the river
My life is like a movie
Right till my last breath and final vision when my Goddess takes me home

Jitters ought to make you stomping not jumping
A piercing needle filled with ink on your skin to be etched in
Yell it out and start screaming, here comes the tattooist from tables end

All you need is a sense of taste, a little green and blue or red and black if you have what it takes
Right to left, up to down, just bear with it and soon it will be over and the pain will be gone

Guided by a stencil and whatever kind of print
Use your imagination, the concept will come to life with the power of ink or tint
Say rest for a moment and he'll give you time
It will then be forever, never you will erase this from that skin, it will be forever be embedded in time

.           At The Tattooist


     How much would the flag

      of Palestine cost to me?


  " Who would charge a child

     to fly her kite in the wind,

  or whom, in their right minds

    would think to tax the tides,

    and why expect a fee from

      a river to flow to the sea "


   A gift sir, it was my pleasure

to witness you share their pain.

Some could say she was a multi-ethnic poet, others
Might want to focus on her motherhood to two
Peaceful beings, grown up to become models, of
Honesty, kindness, fairness and dignity.

Her friends toast to her with champagne glasses,
As her father before her, she enjoyed life to the fullest,
Without major extravaganza casting smiles, able to twist
Sorrow into laughter, lighting rooms as she entered.

Her lovers remember her as the sensual essence
Of a woman, so they defined her many a time, though
She’d ignore why. She wore no make-up nor high heel
Shoes, no creams to prevent age from exhibiting itself.

Her tattooist drew the stars on her body, has knowledge
Of the celestial maps engraved with ink by needles,
Yet I am the only one who knows her deeply, in me
She confided, the creative thoughts concealed in her mind.

She was a tenacious human with courageous concepts,
Dictated by inspiring instincts, something she called
Universal consciousness underlining all, that ever
Was, is and will be, throughout special infinity.

She reconnected the dots and spread the word enticing
Those who crossed her passage to feel, the harmony, unite
In common realisation, that we are one with all and nothing
Can support our existence other than love.

I’ll miss her tender lioness features,
Her mane covering eyes elsewhere, as she gazed
Into the abysses in my direction. Faithfully hers forever,
Mac Apple, alias Pro.

convened
in my living room
summoned to a setcat
to decide by voulbee or fratricide
the next Father of Thieves.

Blahznivee Semyon rises up
like a winter sun over the steppe
peels off his sable coat and hat
he garnishes round after round of applause
for his tattooist's magnificent skill,
and the number of skulls etched in his skin
one skull for every ****.

Arkady the Krahsnee comes to the front
draws a cross across his chest,
wipes caviar from his pickled lips
sheds his necklace of bloated tongues ripped
from the mouths of informants who sing
and with a halo of bicycle chain whirling overhead
steps drunkenly into the ring

The display turns black
chairs are pushed back
***** in every hand.
The soldiers prepare
with a toast and a prayer
and a drop of blood from each man.

Now squaring off
Dva Rusahky:
a fat taloostee,
the other slim-tenki
wade into the fray:

bez nervee, t-shirts, boatkee or fear
they destroy my hanging chandelier
their bratvas stand around and cheer
pass round smokes and mugs of beer.

Černobog’s hammer sits
inside a chalk line circle
like an *******
waiting for a fist.
Black stars collide
shoulders knees torsos
wheel thrown into ****** slabs
hole punched and wire cut
falling on cigarette butts
nicotine thumbs empty eye sockets
vitreous runs and pools
seeps into screaming mouths
through mangled cheeks.

Teeth litter my rug
like chiclets in berry jam.

Here's a finger,
make a splinter
wounds are washed
in chilled Żubrówka.

Semyon lifts the hammer, the winner
a new skull in his flesh, still wet
when he buys my silence
with a Russian dinner
and a round of Russian roulette.

i was an awful liar-
especially when it came to 
my parents, their eyes 
always on me, drinking my presence in
their sole daughter. 

i didn’t think
of them when I sat on 
the sofa of the tattoo shop
waiting.

soon, we were ushered in
who wants to go first?
seeing anxiety flicking over my friend’s face,
i volunteered. 

laying down on the table, 
I thought of my mom
who got a tattoo on her ankle when she was fifteen. 
she laughed when she told me, 
her and the tattooist chain smoked as he worked. 

are you ready? my artist asked,
extending his forearm in a stretch. 
a large tattoo of the Buddha stretched around it
smaller tattoos filled the rest of the space. 
i breathed out a yes, 
stress rippling through me as the machine buzzed
into life. 

i focused on the smell of the room
sterile, clean- 
all things I felt the opposite of. 
guilt sunk its teeth into me as the needle touched my skin. 

the needle itself felt like a boxcutter
my ribs a tightly sealed package.
pleasant, no
agonising, no
some sort of purgatorial sensation. 
gaining a tattoo,
losing that skin forever.

as it finished,
i examined the red patch of skin surrounding the ink in the mirror. 
guilt and giddiness coincided within me,
along with a strange sense of loss. 

this skin, 
grown and changed through the years
becoming freckled in the sun and pale in the cold
was gone.
in its place, the number 18. 

when i went home with my friend
the guilt was replaced by giddiness 
and flickers of nausea

i hid that tattoo until i was eighteen,
where i finally revealed it to my parents. 
they laughed and laughed
my mom pulling me close-
you must be your mother’s daughter.