Tattoo

Gregory Lawless: Plenty of people get tattoos for decidedly un-grandiose reasons (they just take to a particular design or image and want to put it on their body) or because of some kind of occasional, cultural and/or traditional motivation, but that’s not what I’m getting at here…I wanted to examine the quasi-spiritual sales pitch that the body-art industry (an itty-bitty subsidiary of capitalism itself) foists upon consumers, or that consumers foist upon themselves. This poem is a kind of monodrama wherein the self is split into a pair of loopy partisans for two conflicting psychic forces (ego/id, buyer/seller, etc.) The prospective-tattooee is ironic and playful (a browser, not yet a buyer) while the tattoo artist is relentless, coaxing, and transactional (a merchant, a fixer, and a palm reader, among other things). Together they manifest something like Yeats’ “argument with the self” taking place in the shabby theater of strip-mall capitalism. Ultimately, these two selves have to find some common ground in order to make the sale/art.

So, getting a tattoo is a complicated form of consumerism but we’re urged to think of it as this personal and personalizing act. Of course, the fact that so many people get ironic tattoos (a mustache on the finger, stylized forearm anchors) is, in many cases, an elaborate hedge against this inherent contradiction. But, for me, the ironic tattoo isn’t a sufficient resolution. Rather, it’s the tension and wonder that precedes the decision, the sale, the American leap of faith, that interests me, because I get stranded there all the time. And I can best explain this predicament, not in an essay, but with art and spiraling questions.