The Wake

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 …

Read more →

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 …

Read more →

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: …

Read more →

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 …

Read more →

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 …

Read more →

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 …

Read more →

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 …

Read more →

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 …

Read more →

Trip this shit man, it’ll free your mind
Swallow it
But only if you wantAnd make no mistake
I’m no babysitter
And if you don’t know your way, you’re soon to get lostSquashed 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 placesStill 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 …

Read more →

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 …

Read more →

He’s not as he appears.
He’s all stripes and seduction,
charm and confidence,
oh and he will drag you in
if you let him.
He will slink about
and bide his time,
playing to your vulnerabilities
with that lulling and luring voice.And you’ll be no match for
his hypnotic watch swinging
back and forth,
back and forth,
back and forth.You poorpoorpoor thing.
It’s too late for you now.
How could you have known
that those sweetly smiling lips
hid sharp shining teeth
only waiting to consume you
with calculated relish?
And those claws just revealed?
You never stood a chance.He will clean your bones,
and with a self-satisfied sigh,
desert this game of cat and mouse
until he’s hungry again;not just for the capture,
but for the chase.

Approaching echoes of
listless voices tiptoe across the rooftops
from a drowned city.
Shifted sands expand a body of strays
and shoves her beyond bordersOcean has swallowed her breath – weakened
her pulse, exhausted and shaken she
continues to reach where her limbs have spilled over
At the corners of an island, she curls her fingers
over crag and digs in with her nails.To claim and strain to stayEchoes wash over her body
as she stands, the wake breaking upon her chest
Deepest songs her chords can muster will
Lead her worn and waded body back under rooftops
of a drowned city.

Pink skirts shouldn’t walk
by themselves past nine.Street lamps stretch
a gray mirror more
breakable than the sun’s.Darkness released. Miasmic
in the air, I suck it up my nostrils.
It pools
above my lower eyelidsunblinkable. Men swirl like steam
out of my peripheral.
The mass of them suddenly
a solid contradiction
of my softness.The shake of rabbit
eyes quake down my curved back
until I escape across
the last three cracks.Lights flood him
from behind, he waits
for me in the door.
Gallant arm bridging it open.Fluorescent medicine
untangles my unease,
but I never forget that he’s bigger.

Mid-autumn is here and the leaves have turned to yellow
Moonlight casts our shadows and the cool air is still
I’m breathing inWe rush into our places and perform our childhood games
The grass is wet with dew and our shoes slick on the mud
I’m runningThe rising pines of the North Country
The chill of coming winter
The sounds of laughter
The crunch of leaves
Am I back home?Night games they are called
I’ve forgotten everything else
I can only think of my breathing and my soaked shoes
The rush of blood to warm the cold skin
Somehow the pain erases away
I’ve been given a moment for myselfJon runs fast and misses my tag
I’m hiding under a bush
I wish I could communicate clearly
And not poetically
But this is how I …

Read more →

I arrive in the Twin Cities at 12:30 p.m. on the first of September – already poised to worry. My mind is frantically pacing in an attempt to assess the staggering amount of money I have spent preparing to leave for school, and juxtaposing it against the dark expenses looming before me. This is going to be an expensive year. There is no doubt that by the end of spring semester, my debt will more than double. But over-thinking these financial shortcomings leaves one irritable and exhaustingly pessimistic. Not a sunny outlook to have on the last weekend of summer. So I instead focus on how I will spend my time until Tuesday the sixth. If I am able to push money out of my mind until then, I’ll be fine.Once classes start financial issues …

Read more →