Aztec Survivor


She’s an old girl,
feather ruffled with echoes
of every show that haunts her stage.

The march to modern tagged her eyesore,
but she held the historical ace close
to her breast, and winked her glass paned eyes
when the wrecking ball played its losing hand.

When the 1920’s danced its way to the bottom,
she was wearing crystal sparkles and singing
tomorrow will rise from the speculation of hell.

Youth likes to rattle its dimes to put age in its place,
but the Aztec is a San Antonio Rose in the swamp sprawl of condos
proving money can’t buy what seasoned grace can deliver.

©Susie Clevenger 2020

The Sunday Muse #108

Comments

  1. Oh Susie you have given the Aztec the voice and life it deserves! This is stunning! I especially love the line "feather ruffled with echoes"!

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  2. Nice tribute to the Aztec Building. I like especially the "seasoned grace" doing what money can't buy. I may have been in one of its shops on the Riverwalk but didn't pay the Aztec its due.
    ..

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  3. This is simply wonderful .... I love your Lady Aztec, I want to visit her, sit in her old seats, watch something. Put in her place? Ain't gonna happen.

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  4. Ha, I especially loved those closing lines!

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  5. This is marvelous! There are no doubt those who would have torn her down and put up their no-character condos. Shame on them. May her mystique never be dulled!

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  6. "1920’s danced its way to the bottom" -- great.

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  7. Loved the way you gave it personality, finishing off with the wisdom of the last line.

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  8. Wow! The images in this are fierce and on point.

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  9. Wise last words...you gave it such personality, bravo!

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  10. Money cannot buy everything, grace is found in unexpected spaces.

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  11. I agree with Carrie, you gave her the voice the old girl deserves! I always loved the place. I have a soft spot for disappearing relics. I used to walk by the closed Playland Park at the base of Broadway and feel all poetic and nostalgic at the sight of the disused roller coaster, but the fact is, Playland Park wasn't that much fun to begin with.But the Aztec, now that's another story. What a place! Even in its dollar movie decrepitude it was still easy to see its former grandeur. And now, so I read, it is fixed u again and hosting concerts.

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  12. In my mother tongue we have an expression that translates into something along the lines of 'what the old man can see sitting, the young cannot see even if they climb a tree'...

    There is grace and experience in aged things, afterall

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  13. The grandness of this theater comes through beautifully, with amazing end lines!

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