National Poetry Month may be over, but I couldn't close the chapter on this year's Tattooed Poets Project without sharing this breathtaking tattoo from one of our "alumni," Natasha Dennerstein:
Natasha first appeared on Tattoosday back in 2012 here.
Natasha was our first New Zealand poet, but she has relocated to Oakland, California and recently got this phenomenal piece from Jeramie Hamilton (@thethickwillstick) at Scholar Tattoo (@scholartattoo_sf) in San Francisco. She notes that "the tentacles come right around as if to attempt to wrap around my neck."
She shared the following poem, which she feels is a good companion to this tattoo. The poem, "Clifftop," is from her collection Anatomize from Norfolk Press. She collaborated often with an Australian-born, L.A. artist named Kaye Freeman (@kfreeman1701) and Natasha included a painting Kaye did on piano-roll paper in conjunction with this poem. "This was part of a joint series we did called Skeleton Dreaming," she told us.
In case you can't read from the image, here is the poem again, by itself:
Clifftop
On a Wild Turkey night under an Ativan moon I stagger around
the cliffs to lift my dark spirits. One too many times you arrive
with the slime of her on you and expect me to lick it away. I
slip or fall or plunge into the bitch-slap, ice-cube sea where the
fish nibble my flesh and gropers take sustenance from my
innards til all that's left is bones, a home for hermit-crabs the
dome of my skull. Plankton colonize my ribcage. My weary
bones roll on rocks: I've found my salty home on the seabed
floor, where currents pass through me and gently carress me.
My heart is devoured by bottom-feeding creatures of the
deep. A lobster eats my pancreas; a crab consumes my pituitary
gland. They may end up on your table as you have a penchant
for seafood. Take me, sea, I'm yours; eat me, lover, I'm fish-
food.
~ ~ ~
Thank to Natasha for sharing her wonderful poem and tattoo with us here on Tattoosday's Tattooed Poets Project!
This entry is �2017 Tattoosday. The poem and tattoo are reprinted with the poet's permission.
If you are reading this on another website 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 http://tattoosday.blogspot.com 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.
