ABPA - Australian Bush Poets Association

INK BLOT – Maureen Clifford © The #ScribblyBark Poet

When you’re trim, taut and terrific and your bodies firm and buff
then a tattoo seems a fine idea and one is not enough,
but as age and gravity conspire to make your body sag
then the tatt that once looked really cool is now just not your bag.

There’s the dainty little dolphin tattooed on your derriere
which at twenty looked real cute but now a whale seems is beached there,
and those words in ancient Sanskrit - seems that they don’t really say
what you thought they did – but too late now – good money you did pay.

And that full sleeve one often sees in designs all somewhat tribal -
as your muscles sag and skin gets loose – draws comments somewhat ribald.
You may recall how much it cost – close to a full months pay
you can’t afford erasure now so it will have to stay.

And while the colours now are bright and vibrant and delight
with age they seem to fade and blend – become a sorry sight.
Oh it’s great to be an individual and like all your mates
get your bodies inked when you are young – but caution – old age waits.

Imagine Mona Lisa with a tattoo of a butterfly on her neck and a stud in her lower lip. Nah

Um yeah, there is not too much think in the ink is there!
I can't remember who put a poem up years ago, it may have even been on Frank's old site, but it was about a league player who had the try line in site to win the game. But at the last moment he couldn't make it over the line because he collapsed from the weight of the ink!!!

I remember an old episode of Dad and Dave (yes, it was in medieval times I think) - where Mabel was upset because she discovered Dave had a tattoo on his arm that read, "I love Sue".

But Dave was quick to point out that he had asked the tattoo person to write, "I love suet pudding". Only trouble was, Dave had fainted after the second "e".

Oh, how true! I am constantly amazed by the popularity of tattoos over here, sometimes over every inch of the body that's showing!

I had a mate who went to Vietnam...to get shot at not as a tourist, he and a few mates got a tattoo before some training exercise, (seems if they had broken skin they were excused from the particular exercise)... he wasn't that thrilled about having it in later life, but he just used to refer to it as his military tattoo...

I've got 2 nieces who are covered in ink and yet my son who is a 'sailor' and lives permanently on-board his boat, hasn't a one