Tuesday Tidbits 20 Aug 13

Autumn-

Her lipstick suddenly
more orange

Moonlight

Piercing the dark room

Her trembling Oh

Boat

shimmering beneath

the boat

This past Thursday the Revel Casino closed their poker room. This made me sad, as I had played almost one thousand hours there since they opened. I really dug the casino even though I ran terrible there and lost over 10k while I played there. One of the things I loved was the food, they had a great poker room menu that was very cheaply priced but served Room Service food. And the Revel has awesome room service food. The Reuben sandwich was ridiculous!! I also loved a couple of the restaurants there, Amada was very good, but the Taco Truck and Luke's Marketplace were my favorites. I went to the Taco truck so often that I didn't have to order, they'd see me and just start ringing up my order. Luke's Marketplace was my absolute favorite though. I once ate there everyday for three weeks straight. The waffles are the best I've ever had, bar none. Pizza, sandwiches, salads it didnt matter. I was such a good customer they let me order off menu, in fact, I ordered a waffle with a scoop of Pistachio Gelato so often that they actually added it to the menu. It was expensive, but I didn't care because I was using Comps. Now, with no way to generate Comps I'll be a lot less likely to eat there. Gonna miss that place. Especially the Mexican Cokes. Check out a haiku I got published over at 

Below is a new version of an older poem I've been revising. I happened to bump into the woman I wrote it for, she was a poker dealer at Revel for a while. 

HOW I SPLIT MY TONGUE 

I've always loved to say 

'acetaminophen.' 

A wizened woman 

Once said 

some words are swords, 

and Almighty in the mouth. 

Can be held on the tongue 

like a nib of licorice, 

or chewed like roots 

for medicinal value. 

Some taint the tongue, 

blade the blood pressure 

or unharry the hard muscles 

of the heart. 

Like 'acetaminophen,' 

some swords cause bleeding. 

Your name is a sword 

in a language I yearn to speak. 

Yearning is a kind of hope. 

Hope is habit forming 

and stains lips. 

A rare sweet root, 

The chemist says 

boiled into an extract, 

it alleviates even 

the barking cough of bitterness. 

Your name rhymes 

with acetaminophen,

cloaks the tongue 

in a crimson robe. 

Tonight, the moon is a monk, 

kneeling in the dark cave 

of the heart, 

chanting a numinous name 

until the sky bleeds light.

And until next we meet, may all your potatoes be sweet (and dusted with cinnamon).