On my way to the Ft. Lauderdale airport, I was on the lookout for a bar or nightclub to leave an excerpt from poet Duncan Forbes’ “Recension Day.” Then I got stuck in a traffic jam. And inched by a tattoo parlor.
A much better spot than a bar for these lines about things that can’t be undone:
Here’s a link to the poem in its (very short) entirety.
Ah a poem about things that cannot be undone, and there are certainly enough of those, yes? An interesting place to put that poem, wonder how many people will think of things that can’t be undone when they read it, and if they will reconsider something so permanent as a tattoo? I have never had one, but my son has several and has never regretted them. They have a lot of personal meaning to him, and continue to bring him pleasure. Every once in awhile I think about what I would choose for a tattoo, if I decided to have one. You know, it changes with the years. This year I think I would have the word “Kindness” tattooed across the back of my right wrist so that I would be reminded often of how much we need a little more kindness in the world.
A beautiful thought, your idea for a tattoo!
What a fantastic idea to leave these poems around as you do. At one stage when the anti-refugee polemic here was particularly vicious, I was contemplating asking a shop like the Body Shop to put up Carol Ann Duffy’s
“Foreign” – “Imagine living in a strange dark city for twenty years…” I guess what you do is making a difference to just one person at a time.
Thanks for directing me to that poem…..I hadn’t heard of it or, I’m ashamed to say, Carol Ann Duffy either.
Put it up! There would be many, many homes for this one!
Hmm. You may be leading me astray down the urban guerrilla poet path.