This is Kira’s tattoo from “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” by Dylan Thomas.
This tattoo serves as a reminder against apathy and indifference towards suffering and death–experiences I never want to fall into complacency with.
Dylan Thomas
This is Michael’s tattoo.
The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.
- Excerpt from “The force that through the green fuse drives the flower” by Dylan Thomas. Read the whole poem here.
Fern Hill
This tattoo belongs to Simon Tonkin:
These are the last three lines from what I regard as Dylan Thomas’ greatest poem – in fact one of the greatest poems of all time – ‘Fern Hill‘.
It’s a copy of the lines exactly as they appear on Dylan’s memorial stone in Cwmdonkin Park, Swansea. The stone was put there in 1963 and paid for by Barabara Cohen and Marianne Roney who founded Caedmon Records, which owed much of its success to its recordings of the poet.
Words and images of Dylan feature very heavily on my website.Thanks also to ‘Pierced Up’ of Park Row, Bristol, England – in my humble opinion the finest tattoo parlour in the city beyond doubt!
Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,
Time held me green and dying
Though I sang in my chains like the sea.
- Excerpt from “Fern Hill” by Dylan Thomas. Read the whole poem here.
rage, rage
This tattoo was submitted by Christian, who says: “This is simply how I strive to live my life.”
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
- Dylan Thomas, “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night”
Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
- From ‘Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night’ by Dylan Thomas
This tattoo was submitted by dylan Snow, who says:
Years ago when I showed this tattoo to my grandmother (who once kicked a man out of her house for having an earring) she told me she approved. It was her grandmother’s favorite poem and favorite poet.