The Tattooed Poets Project: Sammi Skolmoski

Whenever possible, I try and correspond our posts with corresponding dates. So, when Sammi Skolmoski sent this tattoo in, April 11 seemed appropriate:

Why this tattoo today? April 11, 2012 marks five years since the great Kurt Vonnegut passed away and, as Sammi explains:

" 'Goodbye, Blue Monday' is the alternate title of Vonnegut’s Breakfast of Champions. It is my favorite book - one in which Vonnegut’s masterful use of satire and science result in a climax where he, as author, enters the pages as master/manipulator supreme, to indefinitely release his indentured characters from narrative confinement. The 'meta' relationship between writer and character — that they answer to, and are, the same person — changed my attitude toward writing, and rid me of the dreadful seriousness I often assigned it.

And, I just adore sunflowers. The floral manifestation of a ruling cosmic entity! The perfect warrior to bid goodbye to any blue Monday’s to come."

Sammi credits this piece to Mario Desa at the Chicago Tattooing & Piercing Company.

Not only do we get this tattoo from Sammi, but she has also provided us with one of her poems:

ALCHEMIST’S LAMENT

He is monochromatose
transmuted by kaleidoscope
inherent in his daily dose
of bioluminescent dope.

A regulated water bath
that leavens into churning gas
facilitates the stoneward path
of drowning yellow jars of glass

the philosophic red and white
beheld as sacred, even nigh,
rears ancient alchemistic plight
of whole salve dangling near his thigh.

~~~

Sammi Skolmoski is a writer and multimedia artist living in Los Angeles who curates a quarterly lit zine called “Madness, Barely” and is a frequent contributor to San Diego Citybeat. She surrounds herself with mystics, gazes at the sky, and plays her records LOUDLY.

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


This entry is ©2012 Tattoosday. The poem and tattoo are reprinted with the poet's permission.


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