Black and grey realism tattoo of the bearded sea god Poseidon with a trident and a sea creature on the upper arm, shown in three views.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Poseidon portrait with trident on upper arm

Realism · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A bearded, long-haired figure resembling Poseidon fills the upper arm, with a trident rising beside the face and a sea creature below the hand. The linework is soft and the shading is smooth and highly detailed, giving the carved, sculptural look of a classical statue. The tattoo is shown in three panels from front, angled and side views, against dark clothing and skin.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

You have been scrubbing green from the beard of the stone sea god for three weeks, and the old gardener at Harrowgate Hall says you are wasting your time. The fountain sits at the bottom of the yew walk, dry since the war, its basin choked with leaves. Neptune looks out over the lily pond with the patience of marble that has seen worse weather than you.

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Each morning you bring a soft brush and a bucket of water with a splash of vinegar, working the lichen from the curls of his hair and following the grooves a mason cut a hundred years ago. The trident rises beside his cheek, its prongs pitted and black. Below his hand a sea horse coils, its tail wrapped round a length of brass pipe, and the sculptor has made its ribs so fine you can count them after rain. Somewhere in that stone is a man who knew exactly where the light would fall.

On the nineteenth morning the pump coughs, then roars, and water bursts from the trident's three points in a sheet so cold it stings your wrists. The gardener comes running down the yew walk with his cap in his hand, going on about the insurance. You barely hear him. You are watching the spray catch in the god's beard and turn every grey curl silver, and for a moment the stone looks as though it has just drawn a breath.

The gardener stops beside you, quiet now, and you both look up. He says he has pruned those yews for thirty years and never once seen the old fellow look back.

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