Tuesday, October 22, 2019

Poem for Tuesday and Historic Atlantic City

Atlantic City
By Katharine Rodier

So the country wears down
to this stretch of beach
between the sea, colored faintly
like a bruise, and the boardwalk
that funnels daytrippers, nighthawks
past you, down and back
through the distant fog obscuring
infinity, that old trick
of mirrors: yourself against a million
chandeliers, watching red blur
to black as it spins inside
its thin silver orbit,
hearing a dull rain
of quarters whenever someone matches
fruit.

        This town leaves little
to chance. You've seen it:
a chalk outline sprawling
in an alley, how often
a cowboy lies face down
beside the dealer's bullet.
But you find comfort in your shirt,
its devotion to your back, and remember
you have nothing, nothing to lose.

--------

I had an early lab appointment to have blood drawn for my checkup next week, so I started my day hungry and a little woozy though I got the really good phlebotomist. So I stopped to get bagels on the way home, ate one when I got there, then went back out to enjoy the gorgeous weather after our Sunday of rain. After rushing to the Pinchot Forestry Building to get a Halloween Squirtle -- the fall colors near Rock Creek Park are quite lovely -- I met gamers for a Darkrai raid and hung out with some of them for a while before going to Walgreens, then came home for laundry and work.

We watched last week's and this week's episodes of Black Lightning, whose conspiracy is getting too convoluted for my taste -- like The Gifted, I preferred it as a family drama without an insane amount of onscreen violence. Since the Patriots were easily beating the Jets, we then watched the insane season finale of On Becoming a God in Central Florida. Here are some glimpses of historic Atlantic City, where the life-size Monopoly board is gone, but the street name tributes remain. (Trigger warning for a former Trump property in similar condition to his presidency!)

2019-10-12 14.39.03

2019-10-12 14.38.25

2019-10-12 14.28.46

2019-10-12 14.27.55

2019-10-12 13.13.31

2019-10-12 15.35.29A''

2019-10-12 14.28.31

2019-10-12 14.26.08

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