Lion Tattoo Poem by Nassy Fesharaki

Lion tattoo

It was not as is now, with machines
Old tattoos were needled, used cold ink,
They were the true art, artistic.
And varied, “unlike our daily life”.
As Bell says, and great Adorno.

They were done in Hammam.
(Public bath)

“Want lion on my back.”
The master got to work with needle.

“Where are you? ”
“At head, mane.”

“Leave this now for later.”
Master did as he heard.

“Where is now? ”
“At its tail.”

“Can you go somewhere else? ”
The master did obey.

It hurt and was painful.
“Whaynot leave the belly and do else? ”

Master got angry:
“A lion with no head, no belly, and no tail?
Such a thing never lived, existed.”

On Munro’s “She is bitch, betrayer.”
From one feeling as character in fiction.
Such slurs, such insults, are never strange.
For the Men and women who hold pen.

A writer with no root in truth
No place, and no base in nature
Has never existed; as lion of Rumi.
Story, any art, new-old, and always
Means retell, with some parts adopted.