The white chapel was there
still buzzing with
the energy of yesterday.
Ivory innocence
of sparkling eyes
hot blushed surround in lace
sticking like spider webs to
simple whitewashed boards.
Trodden grass, rice, and sparrows lead to
one steeple embedded in green
interwoven hills.

And then came the music
wholesome grade A cream.
Thick, milky, and soulful
crying out for more,

resonating with laughing people
and rustling programs
waiting for the bride.

There she is, step by step
floating through the orchard
under blue sky filled with red apples
slowly, honey weathered wood opens
to reveal her coming
through dappled light
from high windows.

Zinnias and delphiniums
trailing through ringlets.
She soaks the room,
softening it, kneading it
into a pliable sheet,
a blank piece of paper
ready for harmony.

Each note placed
and then place again
touching every corner
falling,
falling faster, pearls,
dropping on marble,
twenty small echoes.

On one side of an impassive avenue tall industry silos flower service roads
and lots filled with gravel, creeping vine, and light green weeds that
split into bunches of three seriated leaves clasping rust colored buds.
Between this avenue and a long river terminating in an enormous gulf many
latitudes away he observes a spacious dichromatic tableland. The river runs
a somnolent pace a dim blue color occasionally muddy. The ovate plateau
level with the avenue is a few comfortable stories above the river. In
defiance of what would be a weeded and bushy elm tree hazed ravine the
inhabitants have cleared flats and maintained turf with which they
appreciate the absolutely muddy beaches and associatively hued water.
Frequently food is hauled down. The meats are cooked over small heaps of
burning charcoal clumps. The fruit is diced or left whole to be eaten with
fingers. Most times though a sparse but noticeable population of men expose
their tanned bellies to the sun on secluded liminal bars of sand. Women
never do this down on the would-be ravine. They accept the sun’s exuberance
atop the plateau on more crafted turfs bordered by regimented buildings
primarily made of brick. Symbols and faces are carved into the cement
entablatures so that they read and watch the knolls. Inside these buildings
a daily tour of cloth and rubber clad feet busy themselves with scheduled
congregations where they voice familiar noises by agitating the air in
their throats. These noises have a prime value for the tableland because
they are studiously recorded by hand dictation, but ultimately it is this
dictation later compiled and printed in uniform texts that matter for it
captures these ephemeral voices for others.
At night in a cement quarter on the plateau where no grass grows other
brick and also wood buildings flower black asphalt lanes that autonomous
cars idle and move upon. They occasionally stop along these avenues. This
quarter is the market. The buildings bear no imperious entablatures like
the other quarter, but employ symbols in a more commercial fashion. The
symbols read on printed banners and the occasionally fastened wood letters
esoteric names that correspond to their building’s wares by an
understanding only gained from the initiation of entering them. At night
this quarter burns lights through a little understood electrical process
where sometimes a minute filament of tungsten or alloy is heated inside a
clear globe producing a fine conical brilliance. More pervasive are the
tubes filled with certain gases like neon that are agitated by electricity
to produce an ostentatious invitation. By these lights he knows that he
will be received inside by questions of ‘what do you want?’ which can
easily be parleyed by ‘what do you have”. In some he is promptly demanded
to proffer a paper currency that can be traded for wares and a plastic card
bearing his portrait and other symbols.
What is common to these buildings is an air of sounds similar to that other
imperious quarter. However these sounds repose comfortably inside the
buildings between groups of two, or three, or four. They are not taken
seriously and never recorded unless clandestinely scribed by a solitary one
not speaking. Although not fundamental to the population as the studious
congregations are, the carefree noises deserve the same fascination. Their
sonorous air compliments the patrons’ consumption of various liquids by a
reassurance and appreciation. Finally at a certain point in the electrical
light effaced darkness all quarters lose their people due to an unexplained
lack of interest, but the market is always last to close. Then when the
emptiness converges on silence the lights have no purpose and are shut off
for use again during the next darkness.
Yet despite the solemnity of the grassy quarter and its primacy in
architecture the lighted market seems more luxuriant. Its blinking symbols
and animated voices that spontaneously bark out into rifts of hilarity and
touching have a more insightful air. It is at least a more joyous reception
to impermanence than that other industrious oratory and oblivious
dictation.

History can be drab, but not when it’s in the hands of Robert Alexander, author of The Kitchen Boy. Through the eyes of a servant, Alexander paints the final days of the Romanov family before their secret murders that lead to the Russian revolution. Alexander humanizes the facts to create an enthralling book that addresses the mysterious nature of Nicholas and Alexandra’s fall from power. As a local writer, Alexander lives in Minneapolis and has spent nearly 30 years traveling and studying in Russia. He will be reading and discussing The Kitchen Boy as well as his other book, Rasputin’s Daughter, at the University of Minnesota Bookstore on Feb. 8 at 2 p.m. In light of his appearance, Alexander agreed to sit down with The Wake and discuss historical fiction, among other things.

The Wake: What attracted you to writing about historical figures and events?
Alexander: Well, I was a Russian language major and I also had a double major in creative writing. I sort of got interested in the story of Nicholas and Alexandra in high school and it’s just something that stuck with me—just the extreme of the human condition and the tragedies that they endured. I like historical fiction because of the way it personalizes and dramatizes the factual events.

The Wake: Why did you choose to write about the fall of the Russian monarchy?
Alexander: Well, as a Russian language major I studied at Leningrad University and so on. I think that there have been plenty of famous people to have fallen from high places. Charles I to Marie Antoinette, even to O.J. Simpson and Martha Stewart, but what’s really different about Nicholas and Alexandra is that they had fallen from every high and they fell very very deep. In other words, they did not get a public trial and they did not have a public execution. So really, in essence, they were liquidated. It’s just such a tragic turn of world events and the value of the human soul when that great country fell that far. How about that? Do you buy it?

The Wake: It sounds pretty convincing. Well, on top of that it makes for a great story.
Alexander: I mean it’s just so utterly unbelievable. They fell from the throne; they were sent to Siberia; they were secretly executed; their bodies were secretly hidden from 1918 to 1991. It really embodies so much of what we’re trying to understand about the human condition, the human experience. It’s endemic. The Russian revolution is so … I don’t know what the word is that I want to say. It reflects the questions so deeply and so harshly.

The Wake: What are the problems or difficulties associated with historical fiction?
Alexander: First of all, you need to write a book that has a sense of pace and a sense of tension and a sense of plot. I think that’s the backbone or the bottom line for any good book. You know we all love to stay up and read a good book late at night. You know the books that we’re crazy about are the ones that keep us turning the pages. So you want to make sure that when you’re doing historical fiction that you find a story and lay your history on top of that. The second thing that you have to be very careful of is not to over do it on the research. On the one hand, you want to write a story. My goal is to write a story like an eyewitness account. I want to do it with all the veracity and authenticity of an eyewitness. But you don’t want to be bogged down by that either. At a certain point you have to take the leap into fiction and too much research, too many facts, too many little details can sink a story, as well as make it seem real.

The Wake: In your opinion, what is the draw of historical fiction compared to mainstream fictions?
Alexander: I love reading as a form of entertainment. I love reading because it takes me somewhere else. What has worked for me and why people have adopted The Kitchen Boy is it’s a chance to be both entertained and informed. It’s not like just eating popcorn. There’s a little sustenance to it too.

The Wake: Do you have any advice for young writers just beginning their careers?
Alexander: I would just sit down and do it. Success is going to come to those who work the hardest. I mean that’s what I believe. And then don’t forget your reader because to be published you need to be read. It’s not just about how great you are. A book isn’t successful for me until it’s successful for the reader.

The Wake: What are you reading now?
Alexander: The newspaper. When I am writing I really have a hard time reading. Getting a book going in my head is like going into a movie. When that movie is going I don’t want to interrupt it. I’ve got to be a terrible reader because I have so many deadlines. But I am reading a lot of research about the Romanovs. There’s a new book by Boris Akunin. I want to read the Kite Runner.

The mark of a virgin
Blush
Downward glance
Men would look greedily
Fingernails
Deep in palm

A former priest, John J. Geoghan, went on trial in Middlesex Superior Court this week on charges of molesting a 10-year-old boy in 1991. He has been accused of molesting more than 130 boys during the three decades he served in Boston-area parishes.

Love: noun
1. an intense feeling of tender affection and compassion
2. a passionate feeling of romantic desire and sexual attraction
verb
1. vti to feel tender affection for somebody, for example, a close relative or friend, or for something such as a place, an ideal, or an animal
2. vt to have sexual intercourse with somebody (dated)

7-year-old Erica Pratt was abducted on July 22 and tied up in a basement by her kidnapper; she chewed through the duct tape that covered her mouth, freed her hands and feet, and broke through a door to escape.

Long ago
we made love,
let our bodies mix,
our kisses bring passion.
Let the heat rise
when we came together
we were one
it was love.

A 12-year-old student at Eugene Butler Middle School said she was late for class [when] one boy raped her and three others forced her to perform oral sex [on them]. The attack happened about 3 p.m. Friday. Two of the boys are 12 years old, one is 13 and the other is 14.

Sex sells faster than anything
That debonair look
Tousled hair
Crimson lips
Bring men to shivers

The story was that she awoke in the middle of the night on Sept. 4, 1997, to find a knife at her throat and a man in her bed. The man raped her, she said, and because of her limited vision and a darkened bedroom, she could not identify her assailant.

TO KEEP A MAN SHOW UP NAKED BRING BEER

100 TIPS TO PLEASE YOUR MAN

HOW TO SEDUCE ANYONE

LOOK HOT … NOW

Instructions for falling in love
1. Have an eating disorder
2. Wear very little clothing
3. Lots of makeup, no one likes a natural beauty
4. Have no waist, but big breasts
5. Say little
6. Spread

for·ni·ca·tion n
1. sexual intercourse between two consenting adults, who are not married to each other
2. in the Bible, sexual intercourse between a man and woman who are not married, or any form of sexual behavior considered to be immoral

“For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from fornication”
1 Thessalonians. (4:3)

In an affidavit, the girl, now 17, said the priest touched her, kissed her and said he wanted to have sex with her or marry her and ultimately committed two sexual acts on her.

Every night
Her mother told her a fairy tale
Always a princess
Rescued by a prince
A damsel in distress
And always happily ever after
“If you are good,” she told her
“You’ll get a prince too”

I was married to my abuser for 5 years. He was extremely verbally abusive, manipulative, and played head games, often making me feel crazy. He became physically violent after a few weeks, throwing things, shoving me, and trying to throw me out of the house in my underwear. At one point he even pulled a knife on me. But I continued to stay, always praying, always hoping that he would change back into the man I had known before we were married. I thought, he hasn’t hit me, so it’s not that bad, I can stay.

Once upon a time there was a princess. And she needed no prince.

He tantalizes me
With his eyes
I am melting chocolate
Dripping down his skin
Stuck in his teeth

A single older woman is an old maid. Looked down upon in every culture. A single man, he is a God, he is a bachelor.

More than 100 women have been raped in a single attack carried out by Arab militias in Darfur in western Sudan

I miss love

The sexual violence seemed to utterly despoil all my fantasies of loving and being loved. He would sometimes tell me I was a stupid, prudish bitch who needed a good fuck; he seemed to enjoy desecrating my highest ideals. I wondered if they were worth hanging on to. I didn’t know what to be to stop it; it didn’t occur to me to think it was strange that sometimes he said he was doing it because I was a whore, and at other times, because I was a prude.

A virgin
Is a prude
An ice queen
Is your desecration dream
“What are you waiting for?”
Scorn her friends

When Tamara Brooks and Jacqueline Marris were abducted at gunpoint nine days later from a remote teenage trysting spot in Lancaster, Calif., they devised a plan to break free by stabbing their abductor in the neck. When one girl had the chance to escape, she didn’t take it for fear that the other girl — whom she hadn’t met before that night — would be killed if she abandoned her.

“Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and the sexually immoral” Hebrews (13:4)

It is a fact that a woman born in South Africa has a greater chance of being raped, than learning how to read.

Cosmo can teach you. Playboy can show you. Maxim can reiterate it. When will you learn? To be anyone, to be anything you need to have sex appeal. Turn on your TV its there. It’s not TV if there is no sex. Still not convinced? Read a paper. Sexual assault is happening. No one cares about love any more. We want sex. We want it now. And we want more. We want it on our walls. We want it everywhere. Who needs love, when you can lie on your back and have the world?

I grew up with love
Not having it
But wanting it

She smiles softly, shyly
lolling eye to ground to me to ground
to me,
her lifted heel turned out edge to toe,
to ground,
to rock her body slowly.
“Want to go to fuck?” she says
in broken English, wordless,
on the tip of her tongue
the words mean nothing,
teeth diagonaled in their gums, the scent of blood
behind them,
blood in sheets,
cold spit-laced sheets.

I ask how much, and secretly gasp…
the easiness of words,
“Twenty fuck and ten for room” she says.
“Thirty all. All for thirty,”
turning, I look down to smile,
to warm and blush,
to say yes alone, to reap away
the comfort
of those words.
“Another night,” I say
to her not-understanding face
expressed on
lips hung red,
eyes light and sweet.

“I need you,” I would say to her
another time and place,
between the soundlessness
of night
and what we didn’t have to say,
but understood.
I leave her standing there,
and turn my head to the newspaper wind,
to the cigarette smoke
on the palms of the trees,
oh girl, mi joven, mi amor,
decir, mirar, torcer, dormir,
I wouldn’t pay you if I could,
but I am more alone than you.

I lie in the bathtub, naked, white as the cold sink,
trout-eyed water-falling tile floor silence.
The hotel is empty,
the night is too long.
I think of the way
she was lit by the lamplight.
I think of the words on her lips,
too young, too young,
I take time to close up my eyes.
I take more than only time,
I listen…..
for the shift of her shoe on the turn,
for the comforting crack
of her crooked-tooth smile.

I’m restless again. I’m folded into the curves of the blankets, melted into the pillows. I feel hot and sticky and shed the fleece and cotton skins that envelope me. Almost immediately, a chill runs through me, and I pull them back on. I gaze into the blankness of the wall, then flip back to stare at the dull orange glow of the alarm clock. I roll flat on my back and trace the textures of the ceiling with my eyes.

I close my eyes, desperately squeezing until the muscles ache. In my head, I constantly berate myself. Stop doing this. Get some sleep. RELAX.

I try to pinpoint what it is that keeps me awake. I wrack my brain into the early morning hours, and I find the answer. It is everything. Everything and nothing.

I listen to the drunken screams filtering through my window, courtesy of the late-night partygoers. The cheap clock I have stashed away in a drawer continues its incessant tick. I feel as though days pass me by.

I memorize the contents of my room under a cloak of darkness. Every photograph, every book, every candle, every poster, every scrap of paper, every stray piece of clothing. It’s all me. But not quite.

In the morning, hours before my alarm is set to go off, I’m stirred from my troubled sleep. The early morning sun oozes through my blinds, and I turn away. I bury my face into the pillow, trying to reclaim that state of unconsciousness. Somehow, the time passes, and I linger in a state somewhere between asleep and awake.

I stare at my alarm clock, dreading the moment it goes off. The CD player cues up, and I silence it before the song begins.

I stumble into the bathroom, where I see in the mirror a face that has become all too familiar: bloodshot eyes, the dark circles that cower beneath them, the disheveled hair, and my mouth affixed into the state of a permanent yawn.

I turn on the water for a shower as I try to wake up from the sleep that only continues to sap the life from me.

The basalt guest chips finger from hour,
Your hair turns the river in a bended way
And fallow light should love the darkened tower.

What dour faces does the silent history powder?
For livid gin makes you forget the pay:
The basalt guest chips finger from hour.

So drink broke the lips down-turned and sour,
It borrowed the palace arch, on which you lay,
And fallow light should love the darkened tower.

A dull tree knotted the spirits weird power,
The sky heavy on your red face goes as it may,
The basalt guest chips finger from hour.

Moving pair of lights within lights that glower,
The drunk forest creeps around, so you say?
And fallow light should love the darkened tower.

The coral eyes on a silent face and your stranded shower,
Strange lands! You provoked the constellations from clay!
The basalt guest chips finger from hour,
And fallow light should love the darkened tower.

The New York Times’ Best Sellers List has gotten under my skin like a noxious rash. It’s a rash I want to scratch because I have both contempt and admiration for it. Like many lovers of the written word, I consult the list to see what people are reading. But if the list represents current reading trends, people are reading the same books over and over again. The Best Sellers List demonstrates the stagnating nature of literature. The same books remain in the top-five spots for ages. This worries me because the list suggests our culture isn’t interested in the quality and diversity of the written word, but what everyone else is reading.

At the same time, what others read is weighty and the list provides this information. In part we read because it connects us to our culture and other people. Before movies and television, books were a primary topic for discussion. They were a major mode of cultural communication. This is still true today, but less so because there are other forms of mass communication and art that are—lets face it—easier and quicker to digest. The New York Times’ Best Sellers List is a guide for what to read if you want to be in the “literary/cultural know,” which isn’t a bad thing since discussing books—any book—is a good thing in my mind.

I’ve also made the assumption that the books at the top of the Best Sellers List are the ones people are discussing around the proverbial water cooler. This assumption seems to hold true. My evidence: the never ending stay of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code in the top-five and the never-ending discussion of the book. Hell, television shows on the History Channel have been inspired by his work of fiction.

But before I go on, I have a confession to make. I read The Da Vinci Code and I did so because everyone was talking about it. I had to see what the fuss was about, but I also had to join the conversations my fellow readers were having. If not for the buzz, I doubt I would have picked up the book. I suspect this goes for others, who either heard about it or saw the book perpetually on the list.

For my purpose I am not going to debate the literary merit of The Da Vinci Code. It’s not necessary. But it is necessary to display my dissatisfaction with still seeing the book on the Best Sellers List. Brown’s work is taking the place of newer books that are equally interesting. The Da Vinci Code is not the only book in history to be controversial and enthralling, but if you were to consult the Best Sellers List you might think otherwise.

Yet, I fear my accusations are poorly aimed. The New York Times’ Best Sellers List simply reflects the buying trends of Americans. It reflects what people are interested in reading about and if that’s true my rash/annoyance doesn’t come from the list, but our culture. We neglect literature and let it sit, wallowing in its own grammatical muck. We favor easy entertainment and the safe books adopted by book clubs. But making accusations won’t get rid of my rash. The only thing to do is ignore the Best Sellers List and read for my own enjoyment. I dare you to do the same.

Trip this shit man, it’ll free your mind
Swallow it
But only if you want

And make no mistake
I’m no babysitter
And if you don’t know your way, you’re soon to get lost

Squashed under thick heavy block chords
Over-amplified and distorted by the child on the organ
Those rhythmic flourishes on the attuned electric battleaxe will be of no comfort
And those lumpy, oddly shaped pulsations invigorating the madness
They’ll hardly consolidate that feedback into some sort of package
It’s one hell of a dull blade man
And it sticks into the most profane of places

Still yearning for my hand?
Skin yer knees and supplicate me baby
Cuz I might just give you what you ask
I hold a big bad gun and I point it freely
I could make you bleed all over the floor

SQUEEEALL!!

Oh no, my baby runs away
Leashed round the throat
Back to the coast
Probably back to Carolina
Out to find a sailor
Waiting for the weather

I can see her through my shades
I know the room is dark

But if you’re in this for the end

Let us get down on the carpet

Impress a crimson rash
I can hit it sideways
Just like…
Just like…
Sister-Ray said

Ohhh,

Ohhh,
Whip it on ‘em Jim

SQUEEEALL!!

Whew, I just peaked

It’s still not over?

No end
Sticks on strings, fat ribbed inappropriate viola strings,
There is sound and pain
Buzzing ataxia
Sinusoidal sound wave needles threading copper panic
Through a nervous system’s tingling ebb too placid to defend

Let it coarsen and crackle exposed to raunchy oxygen
Burning tears into your cheeks until you’ve become someone.

The mouth of the river
is what I want to show you.
How it bullies into the sea.
The push and pull,
the curl of the currents,
the fold of light and water and mud.

The river pertains to all things.
It carries the story of the man I once loved,
who had lanky arms and a fumbled step
and faith in a God I did not believe in.

Over time the river digs and curves.
It shifts great shoulders and pulls back from the sea,
empties its mouth of clams and pockets
and translucent sand crabs
that scurry and click with their delicate legs.

Creatures scatter after the waters sear,
and I worry that I will grow tired
because I want to hold things and name them.
My body will labor until I let go, the fullness leaving me.