The Tattooed Poets Project: Sue Swartz

Today's tattooed poet, <a href="http://swartzsue.wordpress.com/">Sue Swartz</a>, hails from Bloomington, Indiana, and offers up her forearm for all the world to see:<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp6Ypn2uM0C-E3Des6tzMSEfXvRIvAaeti0imATe0fJNyPnnM2yupbA6bqpfJulx1GK9Abj-mvHtyFRGAiJA3h1S-IVgo6PXZVmKF0V8i4owaCFb7bTXegP9yz9TPV6IrC5BNvtaVTQRo/s1600/Sue+Tat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp6Ypn2uM0C-E3Des6tzMSEfXvRIvAaeti0imATe0fJNyPnnM2yupbA6bqpfJulx1GK9Abj-mvHtyFRGAiJA3h1S-IVgo6PXZVmKF0V8i4owaCFb7bTXegP9yz9TPV6IrC5BNvtaVTQRo/s400/Sue+Tat.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo by John Narmontas</td></tr></tbody></table>Sue explains: <br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><blockquote style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: small;">This is a 2-part tattoo story. On my 54^th birthday, I had the Hebrew word for truth (<i>emet</i>) 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, <a href="http://www.volutatattoo.com/Voluta_Tattoo%3A_Fine_Art_Tattoo,_Indianapolis/Dina_Verplank__Indianapolis_Female_Custom_Tattoo_Artist%21_Oil_Painting,_Portraits,_and_colorful_Fine_Art_Tattoos%21_Stutz_Building,_Voluta%21.html">Dina Verplank</a> of <a href="http://www.volutatattoo.com/Voluta_Tattoo%3A_Fine_Art_Tattoo,_Indianapolis/Welcome_to_Voluta_Tattoo%21_Indianapolis_Fine_Artists_and_Tattooists,_Stutz_Artists,_Downtown_Indianapolis.html">Voluta Tattoo</a> in Indianapolis beautified the baldness of the lone word with a branch from the Tree of Life and a spiral/root system. </span></div></blockquote></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigYuo3TB2Dy1zTE74-GpuwPM1aZ9v6HN5i94odwdsiUGQjA4tUFgknDYSH80eZoAxvoiAsQiTOA3WTdZGAsJVnC045GTw780VqyiXQmg9CIuyN-trcS_Jr09DJommYJ5ViVYT0uzDu78M/s1600/Auntie+Sue+Tat+detail.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigYuo3TB2Dy1zTE74-GpuwPM1aZ9v6HN5i94odwdsiUGQjA4tUFgknDYSH80eZoAxvoiAsQiTOA3WTdZGAsJVnC045GTw780VqyiXQmg9CIuyN-trcS_Jr09DJommYJ5ViVYT0uzDu78M/s320/Auntie+Sue+Tat+detail.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo by John Narmontas</td></tr></tbody></table> And Sue offers up this poem:<br /><br /><br /><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;">MID-LIFE</span><span style="font-family: Arial;"></span></div><div class="MsoBodyText"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11pt;">Damn. Another 3 a.m. flying dream. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11pt;">This time I’m on a cement slab hurtling toward over-grown lawns </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11pt;">covered with large plastic pigs and spiked coat hangers. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11pt;">This is not what normal people dream.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11pt;">Awake, I tilt (<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">normal, not normal</i>) on a giant seesaw of guilt </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11pt;">by association and realize: </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11pt;">I might not really know what normal is—</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11pt;">My dead – crazy bastards every one – left far too many clues, </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11pt;">though not one legible note of navigational instruction. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11pt;">Minds overtaken by spirals and whirligigs, Greek letters </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11pt;">and the rising price of toilet paper, they wore the warp & weave </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11pt;">of their affliction stoically. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11pt;">Seamlessly, one might say, and with understated finesse. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11pt;">Running off to Florida on a Tuesday-morning whim: </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11pt;">In the realm of normal. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11pt;">Snapped-on pills for breakfast: </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11pt;">Mildly normal. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11pt;">Washing, washing again, again, again. Refusing to shake </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11pt;">the hand of strangers: </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11pt;">Undeniably normal (well, yeah – you never know </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11pt;">who’s got what). </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11pt;">With garments torn & heads made bare, they bob in and out </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11pt;">of traffic, sit close to me in restaurants, carefully chewing</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11pt;">with their electrode mouths.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11pt;">My dead have secrets. That much is abundantly clear. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11pt;">I listen for whispers of their generous madness, find </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11pt;">they’ve come while I’m asleep. Bad timing is all I’ve got. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11pt;">That, and fingerprints left on the towels. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11pt;">No, I don’t shush them away: then I’d lose the true nature </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11pt;">of everything. If I don’t know what normal is, why not </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11pt;">claim these people as kin? </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11pt;">How else to name my own impurities and small derangements? </span></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;">~ ~ ~</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Sue Swartz is a poet, hired-gun-political writer, amateur ballroom dancer, favored grandparent, social justice activist, occasional <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yogini">yogini</a>, and creator of alternative Jewish ritual. Her work has been published in <a href="http://www.cutthroatmag.com/"><i>Cutthroat Magazine</i></a>, <a href="http://www.lilith.org/"><i>Lilith</i></a>, <a href="http://www.5ampoetry.com/"><i>5 a.m.</i></a>, <a href="http://www.smartishpace.com/"><i>SmartishPace</i></a>, and elsewhere. She wishes she had a book you could buy. You can find her blog Awkward Offerings at </span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><a href="http://swartzsue.wordpress.com/"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">http://swartzsue.wordpress.com/</span></a></span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">. She makes her home in Bloomington, Indiana and believes that <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Leviticus">Leviticus</a> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">(</span><i style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">You are not to make gashes in your flesh for the dead nor incise marks on yourself.</i><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">) goes a bit overboard.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Thanks to Sue for sharing her truthful tattoo with us here on Tattoosday! </span></span><br /><br /><br /><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: x-small;">This entry is ©2011 Tattoosday. The poem is reprinted here with the permission of the author.<br /><br />If you are reading this on another web site other than Tattoosday, without attribution, please note that it has been copied without the author's permission and is in violation of copyright laws. Please feel free to visit </span> <span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://tattoosday.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">http://tattoosday.blogspot.com</a> and read our original content. Please let me know if you saw this elsewhere so I contact the webmaster of the offending site and advise them of this violation in their Terms of Use Agreement.</span></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span><span style="font-family: Garamond; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> </span> </span></div>

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 N...

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