The Tattooed Poets Project: Sue Swartz

Today's tattooed poet, Sue Swartz, hails from Bloomington, Indiana, and offers up her forearm for all the world to see:

Photo by John Narmontas

Sue explains:

This is a 2-part tattoo story. On my 54^th birthday, I had the Hebrew word for truth (emet) imprinted on my right (i.e., writing) forearm in traditional black Torah script. I wanted a useful reminder for my art; also the word contains one letter that is a stand-in for life/God and two others that spell out the word “dead”. Okay, it was a little heavy. Two years later, this past November, when I couldn’t take looking at the damn truth anymore, Dina Verplank of Voluta Tattoo in Indianapolis beautified the baldness of the lone word with a branch from the Tree of Life and a spiral/root system.

Photo by John Narmontas

 And Sue offers up this poem:

MID-LIFE

Damn. Another 3 a.m. flying dream.

This time I’m on a cement slab hurtling toward over-grown lawns

covered with large plastic pigs and spiked coat hangers.

This is not what normal people dream.

Awake, I tilt (normal, not normal) on a giant seesaw of guilt

by association and realize:

I might not really know what normal is—

My dead – crazy bastards every one – left far too many clues,

though not one legible note of navigational instruction.

Minds overtaken by spirals and whirligigs, Greek letters

and the rising price of toilet paper, they wore the warp & weave

of their affliction stoically.

Seamlessly, one might say, and with understated finesse.

Running off to Florida on a Tuesday-morning whim:

In the realm of normal.

Snapped-on pills for breakfast:

Mildly normal.

Washing, washing again, again, again. Refusing to shake

the hand of strangers:

Undeniably normal (well, yeah – you never know

who’s got what).

With garments torn & heads made bare, they bob in and out

of traffic, sit close to me in restaurants, carefully chewing

with their electrode mouths.

My dead have secrets. That much is abundantly clear.

I listen for whispers of their generous madness, find

they’ve come while I’m asleep. Bad timing is all I’ve got.

That, and fingerprints left on the towels.

No, I don’t shush them away: then I’d lose the true nature

of everything. If I don’t know what normal is, why not

claim these people as kin?

How else to name my own impurities and small derangements?

~ ~ ~

Sue Swartz is a poet, hired-gun-political writer, amateur ballroom dancer, favored grandparent, social justice activist, occasional yogini, and creator of alternative Jewish ritual. Her work has been published in Cutthroat Magazine, Lilith, 5 a.m., SmartishPace, and elsewhere. She wishes she had a book you could buy. You can find her blog Awkward Offerings at http://swartzsue.wordpress.com/. She makes her home in Bloomington, Indiana and believes that Leviticus (You are not to make gashes in your flesh for the dead nor incise marks on yourself.) goes a bit overboard.

Thanks to Sue for sharing her truthful tattoo with us here on Tattoosday! 

This entry is ©2011 Tattoosday. The poem is reprinted here with the permission of the author.

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Celina's Tattoo Gives Her Strength and Courage

Last month, I received a phone call when I was walking through the Borders at 2 Penn Plaza. I sat down in one of those comfy chairs and noticed, once I had finished speaking on the phone, that the young lady sitting next to me had an interesting tattoo on her right wrist. I asked her about it and Celina kindly shared it with us here:

Celina explained that she had originally hoped to have this done in Aramaic, but that she and her artist couldn't find the proper script, so she chose this one instead. It's an old Hebrew script, which I can recognize a significant part of, thanks to my many years of Hebrew school in Hawai'i.

The words translate to "Be strong and courageous," from Deuteronomy 31:6:

"Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you."

The Hebrew phrase,     
 חִזְקוּ וְאִמְצוּ
is spoken by Moses, on behalf of God, addressing the Israelites after they have fled Egypt and are about to embark on the journey that takes forty years and eventually leads them to the Promised Land.

This phrase resonated with Celina, who had this tattoo done before she moved to New York from the San Francisco Bay area, and was about to embark on a journey into the unknown.

She credited the artist Chris Evans, in Santa Cruz, California, with inking this tattoo.

Thanks to Celina for sharing this tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

Tehila's Amazing Tattoos Rest Deep in Her Faith

After my wife got her "13" tattoo (story here), we had some time to kill before our dinner reservations at 7:00 pm. So, we headed to Chelsea, then walked down 23rd Street to the Housing Works Thrift Shop.

It was there, while browsing, that I met Tehila, who was visiting from Washington, D.C. It was this tattoo that jumped out at me:


Quite an elaborate neck tattoo, which was in part designed by her mother, from her birth announcement. The quote, "Do justly, walk humbly, love mercy," is from the book of Micah (Chapter 6, Verse 8) in the Old Testament.

The complete passage from the King James Version is

He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?

Tehila, however, had another tattoo to show me. She took off her jacket and rolled up her right sleeve.

On her inner forearm was this amazing hamsa tattoo:


Unfortunately, the photo doesn't do the piece justice, as the prayers, in Hebrew, circle the arm completely. One of the prayers is from the Amidah. I generally shy away from taking pictures of pieces that wrap around the arms, for fear of not being able to capture the full spirit of the tattoo. But in this case, the work was so lovely, I couldn't resist.



Tattoos with Hebrew writing have appeared previously on Tattoosday here. I have featured a hamsa tattoo previously here.

The pieces are credited to Imaani K. Brown and Chris Menhah at Pinz-N-Needlez in D.C. Chris inked the Hamsah and Imaani is responsible for the neck piece and the Hebrew text the wraps around the forearm.


Wondrous thanks to Tehila for sharing these beautiful tattoos here on Tattoosday!