Tattoos were on the fringe of society many years ago. Not so today.
I fail to understand how anyone in the Western world would want to abuse their body’s skin with tattoos. A small heart, anchor, a word or two I can accept, but face and neck, chest and back, arms and hands, legs and feet, and places few can see, gives me cause for concern.
Are people so bored? Do they seek attention? Have they got money to burn? What does the future hold when their tattooed skin starts to shrink, goes dry and lined, or when this ‘fashion’ is no longer in vogue. Think ahead before you act. You’ll scare the grandchildren when you are 88 and that floral display now looks like a dead spray in a graveside plot.
I grew up in a mining village, and many miners had tattoos. Not in coloured ink, or picturesque images, but tiny scars on faces and hands from flying chips of stone and coal as they hacked or drilled away at the coal face. Part of each working day or working night, a symbol of their courage and strength.
Our skin is a valuable diagnostic tool for aspects of our health. I guess that when it is covered in multicoloured inked-in tattoos, it is difficult to find the medical evidence that visually scanning of normal plain skin achieves.
Older tattoos will itch, and concern has been raised with the increase in large tattoos, relating to future skin cancer.* Black tattoo ink contains hazardous substances, lead and mercury. Cadmium is in red and yellow ink.
This old codger will not be around to witness any long-term damage to health and wellbeing for all those walking around today. I fear another unnecessary expense for the NHS.
The growth in sprayed-on graffiti on many walls and bridges around our nation shows a lack of respect for property but this can be scrubbed off. Not so with tattoos and body art. I could not resist expressing my concerns about this growing trend in one of my poems. POEMS BY AN OLD CODGER – BOOK TWO.
Am I alone in my distaste for Body Art? Let me know if you agree or not.
*Recent Danish Study.
BODY ART
I fail to comprehend
This national growing trend
To cover one’s skin
With ink that’s needled in.
I don’t know what to think
When I see this coloured ink,
From fingertip right to the head
And areas revealed when going to bed.
What is the point of this graffiti art?
Faces and words and a dripping heart.
Flowers and snakes and frightful things,
Monsters in flight with very huge wings.
Sailors came home with an anchor so small,
A symbol of their professional call.
Flesh now covered in dense ink like cloth,
An outer surface that will never slough.
Revival of an ancient art is not new,
Rekindled before in the 1600’s, that’s true.
Even one old Prince of Wales and his dad
Paid a visit to a tattoo pad.
This body art has many forms,
Celtic, Tribal, Old School, are some norms.
Japanese have always led the way,
Now our nation’s 40% are happy to pay.
Come the day when this fashion dies,
‘Please remove’ will be the cries.
Solid carbon-based ink is used,
If you try, you will be bemused.
Dettol was the old protection
For instrument cross infection.
The NHS will now be overwhelmed,
Dermatologists will all go ‘round the bend’.
Copyright 2023 Neil Davies
If you are enjoying my blogs, my books – POEMS BY AN OLD CODGER are available at AMAZON BOOKS. Please tell your friends and family or better still buy a copy or two. Proceeds from the sales are going to THE BRITISH RED CROSS UKRAINE APPEAL.
Thank you,
Stay safe,
Neil.