Pat Winslow
The Tattooist is More Practical
No. I don't expect to see him. The man's a fool.
Too old. Draw the pain, he says. Draw it good.
I heat the needles - bones from the wings of a grey-faced owl.
I make several passes over him, draw the signs that are in my mind
and burn them in. I stem the tide of weariness,
but I can't stop up the years. Thirty-nine summers.
The man's had it, I tell you. He's dead.
Most don't last past thirty. Settle down, I say.
Every year. Settle down, let someone younger do it.
There is no one. I think he knows.
I think he regrets his singular life.
No man should hold his seed so long.
It isn't natural. There should have been sons,
a woman to milk his cows and warm his cock.
The man's a fool. Was, I daresay.
He's not here now.
Too old. Draw the pain, he says. Draw it good.
I heat the needles - bones from the wings of a grey-faced owl.
I make several passes over him, draw the signs that are in my mind
and burn them in. I stem the tide of weariness,
but I can't stop up the years. Thirty-nine summers.
The man's had it, I tell you. He's dead.
Most don't last past thirty. Settle down, I say.
Every year. Settle down, let someone younger do it.
There is no one. I think he knows.
I think he regrets his singular life.
No man should hold his seed so long.
It isn't natural. There should have been sons,
a woman to milk his cows and warm his cock.
The man's a fool. Was, I daresay.
He's not here now.
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The