Literary Tattoos

I don't know if I blogged about this already, but it's, like, totally awesome.

Tattoos are great and all, but a lot of them seem to be deliberately enigmatic - like the snake-entwined dagger smashing through a skull with crossbones behind it. Seriously, wtf? I think people get these done with one eye on the future - how on earth, they might think, can I explain this to my children which I don't yet have? Chinese characters are also good for this, although the idea of permanently sporting a word from a tonal language which I don't speak leaves me petrified of the potential humiliation - you could be that tattooist's running joke for the next 30 years, you realise?

So I totally respect the literary tattoo - you can't hide behind any ambiguity. Passion is always appealing, and permanent passion more so than any other. You can see them all here, but these are a few of my favourites.



"Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt"














And my new favourite - I'd neither read nor heard this poem until last night.

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

- e. e. cummings, i carry your heart with me