Mary J Blige Tattoos

Lets have a close look at the lovely tattoos of hip hop artist Mary J Blige.

Mary J Blige has a handful of tattoos, including a rather large rose on her right thigh and a beautiful cross on her upper left arm.

She also has her name "Mary J Blige" as an armband tattooed in old English lettering, on her right arm.

Checkout some photos of her array of tattoo designs.

Tom Araya Tattoos

Tom Araya is an amazingly talented Chilean musician known for being the bass player and vocalist of the thrash metal band, Slayer.

Tom Araya has many tattoos on his body, including two nearly complete sleeves, as well as several other designs on his upper arms and shoulders.

Some of the tattoos on his right arm include, a skull on his upper arm, along with two Kanji characters underneath. Plus many designs within his sleeve, including a star and bio-hazard symbol, plus a bracelet of sorts.

Contained within the sleeve on his left arm is the faces of three women, one of which resembles Jackie Onassis.

Tom also has a handful of other tattoos on his upper left arm and shoulder area, however they are rather difficult to identify clearly.

Rafael Araújo Tattoos

Rafael Araújo is a professinal Brazilian basketball player who has also spent some time in the NBA with the Toronto Raptors and Utah Jazz.

Rafael has quite a few tattoo designs, mainly on his arms and back.

On his left arm is a tattoo of a hand holding a basketball, along with 3 Kanji characters.

On his right arm is a large tattoo of a cartoon style shark with its tongue sticking out, along with a couple more larger Kanji characters, on his bicep and shoulder.

Rafael Araújo also has a rather large tribal style tattoo across the top of his back.

The Tattooed Poets Project: Debbie Kirk

I always like to finish up the Tattooed Poets Project on a strong note, so today's tattooed poet, the last of this year's series, is the heavily-tattooed poet Debbie Kirk.

It also happens to be Debbie's birthday today, as we check out one of her tattoos. More specifically, let's look at the top of her left arm:

This piece, complete with straight razor, brass knuckles and cherry bomb, bears a banner that proclaims "Bow to your elders, you Emo Fucks."

I mean, what more can I say about that?

In discussing which tattoo of Debbie's to use, this exchange took place:

Tattoosday: "I hesitate to use the emo one because of the language and because I'm sure people will not understand why you would get it, but that makes me want to use it more".

Debbie: "its a favorite with peeps...it has been declared the sexiest tattoo ever..."

Tattoosday: "I love tattoos but they are generally so benign nowadays, so it's nice to see one with a true fuck-all attitude."

Debbie: "Yeah, that defines me what you said right there....and why I got the tattoo. I think that single tattoo is the most ME. I can be a bit honest...which is why people like my poetry."

Where'd she get the tattoo? Debbie recalls " I just remember I got it in Venice 5 years ago from a girl who proposed to me when I told her my idea...I still tell that story. I KNEW it was good with that reaction and she was hot."
 
Debbie gave us several poems to choose from, and the one we selected, she says, is very representative of her work:

Little Frankenstein girl

 

Little Frankenstein girl

has the hands of a pianist

And the heart of a broken organ

With thorns, glass

Bats and Indian ink

Seeping thro…

Sewn together

Crookedly stitched

Like a pastel valentine heart

Filled with mismatched parts

Little Frankenstein girl

Has the right brain of a killer

Her right hand is dominant

While her left foot always faces away

Wanting to disconnect

To run

To be free

To not be part of this

Fucked up experiment

Dreamt up by

A genius dressed in rags

And chased by demons

The kind that really scratch and bite

When you are fast asleep

Little Frankenstein girl

Is not a little girl anymore

The curls in her hair

Dreaded up in the sun

Medusa in the wind

Her loud strong voice

Muffled under the stitches

That firmly binds her lips together

Bondage bringing pleasure

Only to those who wish

To keep her silent

(and they are many)

The little Frankenstein girl

Can’t count the stitches on her wrists

From all of those nights

With her right hand doing

What her left foot

Wanted to walk away from

And her not understanding

That she was never really alive

In the first place

Little Frankenstein girl

All mixed up

And

Mix matched

Returning every evening

With fresh wounds to be sewn

From another vain attempt

To be mortal for just a few seconds

Before the fall

Little Frankenstein girl

Stolen parts

Come with stolen lies

Maggots and flies.

The gravedigger, looking to make a buck

Steals her a kiss

The moistness quenches her lips

He promises more kisses tomorrow

She scurries home

Knowing full well

She’s damned to a life of stolen kisses

And malfunctioning hearts

that spit in the moonlight.

~ ~ ~

Debbie Kirk has published 6 chapbooks and been in 12 anthologies and hundreds of print and online zines. She lives in Santa Cruz with her dog Dr. Gonzo.  She has a website she rarely updates at tntkirk.com but she can be best located lurking around Facebook!  Also check out http://tntkirk.com/.

Thanks to Debbie for sharing her tattoo and poetry with us here as we close out the Tattooed Poets Project on Tattoosday. Also, we wish her a very happy birthday today!

This entry is ©2011 Tattoosday. The poem is reprinted here with the permission of the author.

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 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.

Nicole Appleton Tattoo

Nicole Appleton is a lovely and talented Canadian pop star, known for being a member of the hugely successful pop group "All Saints" and later "Appleton" with her sister Natalie Appleton.

Much like her sister, Nicole Appleton only has one tattoo design.

The tattoo is on the left side of her lower abdomen, and its of the Chinese symbol representing the "Year of the Tiger".

Natalie Appleton Tattoo

Natalie Appleton is a great Canadian pop singer, best known for being a member of the all girls pop group "All Saints" and later as part of the group "Appleton" with her little sister, Nicole Appleton.

Natalie has a single tattoo design on her body, located on her lower back and its of a small bow tie, along with two other unknown symbols.

Fiona Apple Tattoos

Fiona Apple is an extremely talented and creative American singer-songwriter, with a music style influenced by jazz, pop and alternative rock.

Fiona Apple has two tattoo designs which we know of and both are located on her lower back.

She has a tattoo of the letters "KIN" and "FHW" on the lower portion of her back (Not Pictured).

LL Cool J Tattoos

LL Cool J (Ladies Love Cool James) is a tremendously talented rapper and actor, who has been tearing up the music charts since 1985 with his debut album, Radio.

LL Cool J definitely has a passion for tattoo artwork, and has a handful of tattoo designs.

On his right arm is a microphone with a kings crown on top, and the name "Mr. Smith" across the handle, the cord of the microphone is quite long and wraps down and around his entire right arm.

On his upper left arm he has a large tattoo which says "Respect" written in a tribal style lettering.

He has seven spiritual symbols from Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire cultures, which run down his left leg. The first symbol stands for "presence of God and protection".

And finally, he has a small script tattoo on his lower stomach, a possible tribute of sorts, however its not clear.

Checkout these pictures of LL Cool J and his tattoos.

The Tattooed Poets Project: Lizzie Wann

Here, on the penultimate day of the Tattooed Poets Project, our contributor is Lizzie Wann:

Lizzie explains:

As I came into my poetic self in college, I knew I wanted a tattoo to symbolize that. My friend, Kevin, designed it for me and I carried it with me for a while. For spring break in 1993 or 1994, I went to Seattle with 4 of my best friends at the time. We happened into a cool tattoo shop and 4 of us got our first tattoos (the 5^th person didn’t want one).It was great because we each got something that symbolized who we were at the moment but also who we hoped to be in the future.

Here's a closer look at this quill and ink bottle tattoo:

Lizzie shared this poem, as well:

Grace

she lives here with me

but she comes & goes as she pleases

never tells me where she’s going

never leaves a note

it’s typical that she’ll come in

just as I’m falling asleep

I catch glimpses of her sometimes

usually when there’s music

we used to be inseparable

I didn’t think she’d ever leave

now, daily happenings of my life

rarely interest her

but sometimes they do

and she’ll spend time with me

when that happens

I remember how good it feels

her company is like an avalanche of

warm towels out of the dryer

I could stay there all day

© 2010 Lizzie Wann

Lizzie Wann started reading at open mics in 1995. She soon became an integral part of the development of the San Diego poetry scene, facilitating workshops at the Writing Center, creating her own readings and producing original shows that featured poets and musicians. She earned a spot on the 1999 Laguna Beach national slam team that competed at the National Poetry Slam in Chicago of that year, and from there, helped make slam poetry become a San Diego fixture. She was on the 2000 San Diego team that went to the West Coast Regionals in Big Sur, served as coach for that same team in 2002, and co-hosted the fledgling San Diego slam, held at the Urban Grind, until 2003. Her work appears on CDs (A Wing & A Prayer and A New Leaf), in chapbooks including Familiars, Naked Wrists, and Complicated Skies and in anthologies including Comstock Review, Incidental Buildings & Accidental Beauty, A Year in Ink, volume 2, So Luminous the Wildflowers, The San Diego Poetry Annual, and Don’t Blame the Ugly Mug.  She also founded the Meeting Grace house concert series which ran from 2000-2008. One of her CD’s can be found at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/lizziewann.

Thanks to Lizzie for sharing her tattoo and poem with us here on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2011 Tattoosday. The poem is reprinted here with the permission of the author.

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 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.

Carmelo Anthony Tattoos

Carmelo Anthony, often referred to as "Melo" is a tremendously talented NBA professional basketball player for the Denver Nuggets, known for his smooth style and clutch jump shots.

Carmelo Anthony is pretty much covered in tattoos, mainly both his arms, chest and back.

Some of the tattoos on his right arm include, a flaming basketball with the letters "C A", the classic "Smile Now Cry Later" faces, but with a dagger in the head of the crying face.

He also has a snake wrapped around a dagger, on the outer portion of his right forearm along with a couple of stars and "Who Can I Trust" on his bicep.

Some of the tattoos on his left arm include, a bulldog with playing cards in the background, his nickname "Melo" with a flaming tribal tattoo design of sorts.

Some of Carmelo Anthony's other tattoo designs include, a spiderweb on his left elbow, "WB" just below his left shoulder, which stands for "West Baltimore".

Melo also has several phrases tattooed on his chest, one of which reads "No struggle, no progress".

Checkout these pictures of Carmelo Anthony and his tattoos.

Marc Anthony Tattoos

Marc Anthony is a Grammy award-winning singer/songwriter and actor, but perhaps best known for his high profile marriage to the beautiful singer/actress Jennifer Lopez.

Marc Anthony has five tattoo designs on his body, some of which are difficult to see clearly.

He has a large cross on the lower portion of his right leg, just above his ankle. A tribal style tattoo of sorts on his right arm.

On the into part of his right wrist, is the name of his wife "Jennifer" Lopez.

Marc also has two small tattoos on his chest, but its not totally clear what they are, however one resembles a man with a cowboy hat.

The Tattooed Poets Project: Gerry LaFemina

Today's tattooed poet is Gerry LaFemina. Gerry put together a narrative about his ink, which makes my job easier, and gives us a detailed view of his tattoos. Let's see what he has to say:

Photo by Joy Gaines-Friedler

"My first tattoo–I was 19, I was a punk rock kid, and I had been thinking about getting a tattoo for some time.  I had had a dream in which I had a tattoo of a skull and crossbones design in which the skull had peace symbols for eyes.  When I was shaving the next morning, I was surprised I didn’t have the tattoo.  So I called up my friend Melody, whose uncle was Tattoo Ray–one of the best tattooists on Staten Island.  She made the appointment and came with me to her uncle’s house.

            In New York at the time (the mid 1980's), tattooing was still illegal: most tattoo artists worked out of their homes and their clientele was through word of mouth.  Ray was pretty famous–and I have met a number of people over the years on Staten island who had work done by Ray. He was funny, sarcastic, and quick-tongued.  I remember asking him about his needles (this was in the midst of the AIDS epidemic) after all and he asked me right back “How clean is your blood?”

             I liked him immediately.  He did the work.  His niece and I talked.  I just remember being surprised how much the tattoo gun sounded like a dentist drill.  The little whine, the humming buzz.

            My second tattoo: I got my senior year in college.  We found somebody in Westchester who did the work in his suburban neighborhood house.  I remember little of the experience.  The tattoo was not the one I wanted: what I had hoped to get – Tigger with a microphone and a mohawk jumping on his tail – I ended up not being able to afford.  Instead: I went with symmetry – and more pirate stuff: a rose with crossed swords above the left bicep.  In hindsight, this tattoo has held up better than Tigger probably would have....

Photo by Joy Gaines-Friedler

            What lasts though are the tattoos I wanted to get but didn’t: After the rose I wanted to get Charlie Chaplin tattooed on me.  I asked several artist friends of mine to make me a design, and I got a few of them, but none of them “worked.”  And for several years I wanted the logo for my old band tattooed somewhere.  But neither happened.

            So I went with two for a long time: but I often thought about getting new ink.  I wrote.  I taught.  I created a program for young writers in northern Michigan called the Controlled Burn Seminar for Young Writers.  I committed 13 years to that project, and after the tenth seminar, I thought I would get its logo – a lit cherry bomb – tattooed on my right forearm.  The logo was important to me: I believe poetry and all art should be a lit cherry bomb.  It should be a potential explosion.  But it should be fun, too.  I looked into it a few times, but I finally made the decision on a lark a few days after my birthday.  I was walking on Carson Street in Pittsburgh – tattoo parlor row.  I liked the name Flying Monkey Tattoo.  So in I went.

Photo by Joy Gaines-Friedler

            The tattooist was a kid, He could have been one of my students–he was finishing up his apprenticeship and mine was one of his first tattoos.  The seminar after the ink ended up being the last one.  It seemed fitting that the creative writing kids got to see it before the seminar ended.

            And now I’m back to collecting designs: this time, though, I know who’s going to do the tattoos.  The next one will be a Buddha carrying a tattered pirate flag on my back.  These are the two strains of my life.  And I want the MG logo somewhere.  I’ve been driving an MGB for 15 years.  The tattoo is a commitment and the things I am committed too, the things that define me, that continue to define me I want inked on me.  I spend much of my life putting ink on paper.  I think it’s only fitting to have some ink on me, too."

And now, for one of Gerry's poems:
 

Alphabet City

            Avenues A through D, Lower East Side, NYC

After the ambulances left but

before the sun finally rose above Avenue

C, I walked toward Tompkins Square Park where the heroin

dependent rockers slept, addled on benches, while

ex-punks huddled in their leather jackets

for the morning was still damp. One of them called out,

Gerry? What was I to do when I saw her, recognized

her hesitant familiar eyes. How could I have

imagined things would turn out this way when I’d call out her name —

Joanna — those sleepless nights of high school &

kept a photo of her deep into college.

Longing has such a sense of history.

Morning was approaching in its colorful coat.

Not once those months of kissing her, had I wakened beside her, but

oh — I’d wanted to. She was thinner & glanced away when I nodded;

pigeons surrounded her bench but would take off

quickly with the first sudden movement or when the next squad car

revealed itself in flashers & sirens.

So what did I do? What could I do?

The three five dollar bills folded in my pocket, what

use were they to me? I gave them to her, she who’d once been beautiful. How

victorious I’d felt that first time I kissed her.

We didn’t look at each other, nor did we look askance. I thought of the little

xiphoid syringes she might load with that money. This was my sin.

Two young black kids with dreadlocks walked by singing

Zion! Take me back to Zion! & I knew I’d never be saved.

– Gerry LaFemina

from Vanishing Horizon, 2011 Anhinga Press

Gerry LaFemina is the author of seven books of poems, most recently Vanishing Horizon (2011, Anhinga Press) and a collection of short stories.  He directs the Frostburg Center for Creative Writing at Frostburg State University where he also teaches.  He splits his time between Maryland and New York City.

Thanks to Gerry for sharing his tattoos and poetry with us here on Tattoosday!


This entry is ©2011 Tattoosday. The poem is reprinted here with the permission of the author.

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 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.

Jon Bon Jovi Tattoos

Jon Bon Jovi is a great influential American rock musician, songwriter and actor, best known as the lead singer of the band, Bon Jovi.

Jon Bon Jovi has three tattoos on his body including a dragon design on the front side of his left ankle.

On his left shoulder is the famous Superman shield insignia, and on his right shoulder is the skull of a steer/longhorn.

Enjoy these pictures of Jon Bon Jovi's tattoos.

Tracy Bonham Tattoo

Tracy Bonham is a brilliantly gifted American musician who is perhaps best known for her smash hit single entitled "Mother Mother".

Tracy Bonham has a single unknown bracket looking tattoo design which is located on the top of her right wrist.

Phil Anselmo Tattoos

Phil Anselmo is an American musician, perhaps best known for being the lead singer of the heavy metal band Pantera, he is also the front man for the group, Down, and owner of Housecore records.

Phil Anselmo has a smattering of tattoos on his body, mainly focused on his arms.

The tattoos on his left arm include, a skeleton, a plaque with the saying "Body and Blood, Joy and Pain, Life and Death". He also has a snake on the inner side of his forearm with a demon and flames on the outer side.

Some of the tattoos on his right arm include, a large zombie head, the devil and other ghoulish creatures on his upper right arm area.

Feast your eyes on the evil tattoos of rock star, Phil Anselmo.