A Father Learns From His Son's Tattoos
Poem by W Roger Carlisle
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He rebelled against his father's teachings, His muse is Jacob wrestling God; conflict scrawled upon his skin. He left to join a foreign culture, THE INKBLOT TRIBE, speaking his own being, to awaken mine. His wandering tattoos, his peacock feathers, eagle wings, mandalas, his mother’s birthday, razor wire, snakes, gorgons, warring spirits confuse me. My wife and I hide him in long sleeves and robes. We are hunting worlds of status and country clubs, where skin is pure -- unblemished -- uniformly white -- homogenized milk. His clowns laughing at death, and satanic pitchforks are demons designed to connect through conflict, preempt my wishes, command the attention I didn’t give him when he was young. I am a ghost walking out side my body, under my sheet of conformity, a victim of self forgetting, my own sleeping demons.
His dark wolf whispers with talismanic power, so he doesn't forget who he wants to be, so everyone sees his courage, his fierceness. I play the placating diplomat wearing medical robes, bowing in prayer on the front row in church. I sing smug words of piety and superiority, hide my imperfections in $1000 suits. His crosses are supernatural smudges, reminding him to wake up his soul, find his own God. His painted signs celebrate beauty and form, integrate his frayed, fragmented self, his only chance for permanence. After years of obsession something has cracked. An old man chuckles inside my brain "whatever one loves is beautiful"
W Roger Carlisle is a 75-year-old, semi-retired physician. He currently volunteers and works in a free medical clinic for patients living in poverty. He is on a journey of returning home to better understand himself through poetry. He hopes he is becoming more humble in the process.