Live for Today - Dec 22 2021

 

Live for Today

Dec 22 2021

The tattooed man

embellished himself

with the story of his life;

a little unconventional, perhaps

but understandable,

because don't we all desire to be known,

and better still

admired.

Although fully clothed, he was an enigma,

his unassuming face, unmarked,

the extravagantly inscribed body

concealed inside.

As we are all essentially unknowable,

the secrets of the heart

our hidden inner lives.

As if his private self

and his need to be seen

were at war,

social convention

and self-expression

battling it out.

But he was not an exhibitionist, thrilled by attention.

He was a meticulous historian

documenting a life.

Perhaps counting

on leaving a record behind,

as we all hope posterity

will somehow remember us.

But must have been in denial

about endings and loss.

How flesh

inexorably decomposes.

How bone

is subsumed by soil

before turning to dust.

But neither does canvas last,

and parchment

deteriorates even faster.

Even a granite slab

with its angels and epitaph

and elaborate decoration

is hardly eternal,

no matter how indestructible

solid rock seems.

But he surely knew all that.

Because live for today, he often exclaimed

punching a fist in the air.

And because he had a drunken tattoo

on one illuminated arm,

often rolling up his sleeves

for all to see

the hell with how he's judged.

I read an obituary about a man who died young, but in that relatively short time led a full, wild, extravagant life. A man of appetite and intemperance. What really caught my eye, though, was the description of his body being fully tattooed — which says as much, if not more. Curiously, though, in the accompanying photograph, his face was completely unmarked: the neck is clearly the dividing line between self-expression and polite company. All this gave me a good opening line — the tattooed man — and from there, the poem wrote itself.

I struggled most with the closing stanza, which I most often find the hardest. And in the end over illuminated, when I could have instead called-back with well-embellished, or gone with “adorned”, “garlanded”, “garnished”, “kaleidoscopic”, multi-coloured”, “intricated”, “densely covered” and any number of other choices. But illuminated stood out: I like the religious connotation, which suggests that his illustrations are more meaningful than merely decorative. And I like the radiance implied by the word: bright, colourful, emitting light. And I like the complexity of meaning, because illumination can also mean an explanation, the acquisition of knowledge, a revelation.