People Get Tattoos
People get tattoos because
They think that there’s no change,
Because they’re vain, in love:
They think they choose, because
They’ve no idea at all
The rain in Spain lies mainly
In the plain,
That muscle turns
And what was breast or chest and firm,
De-firms, deforms
With budding bicep rose
Becoming wrinkled, wilted posy of-the-elbows.
I suppose it’s all to do
With time and how we throw
Away our energies, with time
Outgrowing side- and peepshow
We all worshipped once with gusto.
Oh, tattoo, you are a symbol
Of myopia and youth,
A cockeyed view of truth
That lets us down.
Still, people will demand tattoos,
Refusing all discussion
Until gusto gets to be disgust.
Nothing one can do
Except boo-hoo
This triste refrain to all who’ll listen;
Self abstain, and be a witness.
They think that there’s no change,
Because they’re vain, in love:
They think they choose, because
They’ve no idea at all
The rain in Spain lies mainly
In the plain,
That muscle turns
And what was breast or chest and firm,
De-firms, deforms
With budding bicep rose
Becoming wrinkled, wilted posy of-the-elbows.
With time and how we throw
Away our energies, with time
Outgrowing side- and peepshow
We all worshipped once with gusto.
Of myopia and youth,
A cockeyed view of truth
That lets us down.
Refusing all discussion
Until gusto gets to be disgust.
Nothing one can do
Except boo-hoo
This triste refrain to all who’ll listen;
Self abstain, and be a witness.
[Given the popularity of tattoos, beards, shaven heads,
holes in the body...et al, I'm enclosing this highly relevant observation
written first in 2002, revised in 2004 and now again in 2018.]
"The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain" is part of the song "The Rain in Spain" by Frederick Loewe and Alan Jay Lerner from their 1956 musical "My Fair Lady," their adaptation of "Pygmalion," George Bernard Shaw's 1913 play. The phrase contains 5 words that a Cockney would pronounce as "The ryne in Spine falls mynely in the plyne." The phrase did not appear in Shaw's play but producer Gabriel Pascal (Lehal Gábor) coined the phrase for his 1938 movie adaptation. (Shaw had rejected Pascal's notion of turning the play into a musical.)
ReplyDelete"Triste" (from the Latin "tristis," foul smelling) 1st came into English usage in the sense of sad or wistful in 1756.