The Tattooed Poets Project: Sammi Skolmoski

Our next tattooed poet is Sammi Skolmoski, a returning contributor, who first appeared last year here on the Tattooed Poets Project.

She tells us, "Just like last year, my poem isn't tattoo-based, but my tattoo is literary-based ... and I think my poem fits with the tattoo." I was pleased to see this, as it's from one of my favorite books:

Sammi explains:

"Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals? is a line from the first page of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson. While H.S.T. was referring to imaginary bats, this is a sentiment I often utter in the company of fellow human beings. We are odd, deplorable creatures who suffer greatly from a lack of subtlety and an excess of ego, but make for excellent objects of observation. We are the misfit sludge-mounds of earth, and, for those of us who know it, it's magnificent entertainment."

She credits this ink to "some guy at a party giving out free tattoos."

Here is the poem Sammi sent us:

GOD LOVES ME BECAUSE I’M DISGUSTING

Is it eclipse or dual dilation?
Or pre-mitotic ovulation?
Or post-? All filthy deviation
from (rampant rumored) ripe salvation.

Velocity and scope of pattern,
intestine wrapped ‘round booming Saturn--
his own dark matter so excessive
must pride our shit as art expressive.

All crispest human minds devoted
yet birthing stupor ne’er decoded:
even glist’ning spray of stars sublime’s
just cosmic schmutz on the sleeve of time.

Narcissism ever-present in
we mounds of sticky stellar resin
wading in goop of ancient mudpool
gummy galactic oil puddle.

Lest forget sins from tacky tarpit
to soul pollutants (even cosmic)
reflect rich rippling discs of rainbows
when viewed above from diff’rent angles.

~ ~ ~

Sammi Skolmoski is a writer, multimedia artist, bookbinder & florist living in Los Angeles who curates a quarterly art & lit zine called the "Moon Halo Preservation Society Zine” and sporadically contributes to the alt-weekly San Diego Citybeat. Her eyes are usually fixed upon meteors, flowers, trees or words while her ears belong to her vinyl. Check out her tumblr, madness, barely.

Thanks to Sammi for her second contribution to the Tattooed Poets Project on Tattoosday!

This entry is ©2013 Tattoosday. The poem and tattoo are reprinted with the poet's permission.

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.

A Duel on Christian's Arms

Christian is one of the rare Tattoosday subjects with whom I got greedy.

My normal modus operandi is to ask people for an offering of one of their multiple tattoos. I let them choose and I am happy to capture one piece and move on.

But in the course of photographing Christian's choice, I saw his other two tattoos, and requested to include them in the post, as well.

Christian is a filmmaker and the two tattoos he offered as a set were drawings from the storyboard of his film, "The Duel":


Positioned as such, Calico Joe Jackson (on the right) and Remington Turk Dakota (on the left) occupy different arms. In their natural state, the two creations of Christian's imagination, they have their backs to one another, pistols drawn, in classic duel-readiness positions. Below is a still from "The Duel," produced by Elwood Gentry Productions.


As his creations, he proudly wears them on his sleeves to commemorate his first major creative undertaking. See the trailer from the film here.

Above Calico Joe Jackson, on his right bicep, there is a familiar sight, an image from one of the first commercial films made, Georges Méliès' 1902 classic A Trip to the Moon (Le Voyage dans la Lune):




It's a famous shot, with a bullet lodged in the eye socket of an anthropomorphically-surprised moon.

This film as inspired generations of film-makers and Christian loves the fact that such an early cinematic effort was steeped in science fiction and special effects.


Finally, I had to take a photo of the third tattoo:


That is the logo of Hunter S. Thompson, who invented the concept of Gonzo Journalism. As a huge fan of the book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (see my BillyBlog post here), as well as Dr. Thompson's other writings, I greatly appreciated Christian's nod to the late great Hunter S.


All of these pieces were tattooed by the amazing Bert Krak at Top Shelf Tattooing.

A hearty thanks to Christian for sharing his work with us here on Tattoosday!