Sometimes events outside our control can turn us into a hypocrite.

 

One of the many things that have never made much sense to me is the decision for a person to get a tattoo. People change their minds and their tastes about every six minutes, more frequently if they’re a teenage girl. Styles change quickly and often leave us wearing yesterday’s clothes. Tattoos are so much harder to update.

 

What kind of long range plan is involved when a person gets a polychrome tattoo of Big Bird riding a bicycle on their chest. Or how about putting the name of your soon-to-be ex-girlfriend or boyfriend on your upper thigh.

 

Nevertheless, I spent last Wednesday getting a tattoo. I didn’t mean to, but it is apparently required as part of my upcoming radiation treatment. Who knew? Not me, which says a lot about my own long range planning. And the worst part is they’re just dots. They don’t even have some deep meaning related to my philosophy on life.

 

In any case, this seemed an appropriate time to post Tattoo Haiku (In the Cat’s Eye, 2009) which consists of four haikus related to my still-prevailing opinion of these things. Go ahead and trash me. I am a certified “old abutment”.

 

Tattoo Haiku

 

They call them “tramp stamps”,

Tattoos where a spine should be,

Flashing underwear.

 

Polychrome tattoos,

Branding wearers forever.

Colorful cattle.

 

Tattoo’s objective.

Drilling beneath the surface,

To find someone else.

 

Yesterday’s tattoos.

Faded graffiti painted

On old abutments.