The Blue Tattoo

The Blue Tattoo is a collection of short stories, essays and verse about living, loving, fighting, crying and dying; it is about being hungry, homeless, and imprisoned; it is also about wonder and happiness, beauty and bliss; the miracle of birth and the mystery of death. It speaks to miracles and madness; philosophy and religion; it raises questions about ethics and morality. The Blue Tattoo is a rumination by an old man who has witnessed or experienced things good and bad in his life. The author takes us on a sweeping journey through times and places both historic and unknown told through the mouths of everyday people and famous ones too who have been caught up in the pathos and drama of the human experience.  The Blue Tattoo runs the gamut from a moose in a meadow to a blue dragon in a garden, from the Pieta at Saint Peter's to a painted lady in San Francisco, from Buchenwald to Normandy beach, from Thelonious Monk to Dave Brubeck, from tea at Neiman Marcus to eating garbage from the trash. People who are squeamish about blood and war or who are fidgety talking about queers or are repulsed by cussing or embarrassed by sex or have hang-ups about hugging or crying or touching someone that they love, probably should not read this book.  This book is not for the faint of heart or for the macho man.  The Blue Tattoo is for anybody who gets mad as hell when they see a Klansman in a white robe or who gets choked up at the sight of a little girl with shrapnel in her belly. It is for people who can feel the pain of a grieving mother or feel delight at seeing a mother deer and her fawn.  The Blue Tattoo is for people who care, who feel, who laugh and cry and are not afraid of truth.  It is for those that this book was written.