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The Yodelling Tattooist
In Seminyak,
by Bali town,
there is a strange lil’ man.
A yelping, yipping tattooist!
He yodels to mask the pain.
Their naked skin is armoured,
his empty heart is filled.
The yelping, yipping tattooist,
yodels to mask the pain.
Both his pain and that of his guests,
the cries they do drown out.
For pain is meant to be silenced —
The coward does it with a drink,
the brave sing a song.
The second poem I ever wrote, the yodelling tattooist is heavily inspired by Oscar Wilde’s “Ballad of Reading Gaol”.
I was in a retreat and given an exercise where we would have to write a poem set in Bali.
The catch? We would have to use a random noun and verb given, and we would have to write it in 15 minutes.
