Murder of a Millionaire

Finally threw a murder mystery dinner party.  It was all very last minute--I spent the day printing materials and prepping food--but I was impressed at how well the guests owned their roles.  The highlight of my night was either Neal exiting the den with loud, euphemistic exclamation, or Reilly Ravish forcing me to hold onto my bribe while he retrieved his locked briefcase.  We used the "Murder of a Millionaire" script from nightofmystery.com.  Excellent evening.

A heated tete-a-tete between Neal Worthers and Allison Rochester.

The gloves make the butler.

Shady deals with Bob Bucks.

Mr. Rochester's dysfunctional household.

One of our friends couldn't make it to the party, but we still assigned him a role.

Peace Out

Close the hotel curtains
Because your act is up

No more dogs in the road on Sunday evening
No more taxis or angry police
No more muffled calls to prayer
No more gratitude in our response

No more flies to tell you
Skippy's not asleep

No more whispering neighbor children
No more headless surprises
draining from the swing set

No more hotel curtains
One more travel song

Ironing Shirts on a Friday Night

Steam coiling around his shoulders

The man irons without precision
Twenty-three or forty-three
He always presses too hard
Boiling seams
Billowing steam from under the collar
Unrelenting
He wishes it would burst into flames
but it only twists oddly

So much freedom in the greeting of a locked door
Do you really want to be looked after?

Pause to observe the wrinkle
Tilt the iron back slowly

Then the midnight train
will rattle the ironing board
Grinding banshee metal from the tracks
Seals the evening
He pulls the plug
and disappears

Aisle 6

A hundred jugs of orange juice
purposeless and pale
thin concentrates, flat correlates
dry rind under dull light

They are straining the pulp out of everything

Craving solids
nectar beads on frosty rim of glass
whole, full
fruitful seed of Florida

No Pulp

Orange tag betrays
the fake striped straw
and liquid solid sip
I thirst still

Stepdad Music Video

The point of this video was to get out and make something.  In the middle of a semester, sometimes you gotta run and gun with your 60D.  Facebook comments prompted the material.

Fargo Paintings

Postcard from the Bottom Bunk

Greetings from the bottom bunk
where I lay quiet enough to ponder
an older brother gone quiet

where I lay quiet enough to think,
are you still up there?

Sometimes I envied your perspective
but now I think, to be first
must be quite the weight.

What a climb

And here in the bottom bunk
at least the bathroom is closer