Poetry: Selections from Peter Mladinic

Other Nights

 

The shop teacher told you you’d end up

being a factory worker, but you died

before the dream could be fulfilled. 

Paul, I’ve worked in a factory.

One morning I was counting boxes of meat

in the freezer.  This woman’s face came before me.  

It was peaceful, and I’ve known other nights.

 

I desire teenage girls in Glencoe, autumn

afternoon drives along Sheridan Road.

Why am I so afraid of being alone?

Have I ever had an orgasm at the same time

that my lover has had an orgasm?

Sex is all, and all to good to be true.

That’s what the doctor said, that afternoon

I didn’t call you back from the dead

to cry for my life in the waiting room.

 

I make love to three women in five days.

Señor Blues is what they call me.

Each time I plunge into my loneliness

I dream of a factory. 

Twelve years ago we hitchhiked 

past the spot where you’d be underground.

 

We rode shoulder to shoulder on a bus

to have our pictures taken 

by an older man living in a lonelier city.

I knew the dark, thick skin of your body, 

your uncircumcised penis, the tone of your 

voice in a closeness as intimate as love, 

and you used to think I was beautiful.

The Difference Between A and Z

 

When A talks to people she uses their

names, Z doesn’t; that’s it right there,

that’s the heart of it. Both are beauties.

I’m sure in Z there’s a soul, a garden.

Her tattoos, her back, her chest, an arm,

a leg are like ivy climbing a wall. One

a script: I love you to the moon. Maybe 

you is a sister, or a big love from the past,

 

a man, his name whispers in the dark.

A, no tattoos, pale but not too pale skin

unblemished, long, straight, very dark

brown hair. Noticeably taller of the two,

she always calls people by their names.

And she doesn’t wear a nose ring, nor

does she have piercing an eyebrow 

a safety pin, nor a stud near a lower lip.

 

She’s clean. Which is not to say Z isn’t,

only, with your blonde hair pulled up

showing your perfect neck, why don’t you

once in a blue moon speak my name?

I think it comes down to breeding. A

must have had good breeding. I think

when a person speaks to you and uses

your name…Z teaches. You think she’d 

 

know the importance of that, of speaking

a person’s name when talking, or texting

or in a letter. Do people write letters

anymore?  I’m not thinking of these, Dear

Reese Johnson, we write to inform you

you’ve been accepted at Monmouth

Teacher’s College bureaucratic affairs.

But a letter from one friend to another.

Z’s hiding something is what Dorrie said

when I told her about this blonde woman

she doesn’t know, and I know only a little.

But I know her better than I know A. At, 

let’s call it,  The Crematorium, I see A

walking into a room, standing in a corner

or, in the lobby, staring out a window.

She’s breathtaking, pleasant to be near.

Laika

 

Mistakes in smoking jackets, in Speedo

trunks and goggles have memories

of animals behind bars at the zoo, train

memories, cape memories of jumping off

a roof thinking they could fly. I can’t jump

rope.  I’m not afraid but don’t like

making mistakes.  My attitude,

I have an attitude, a chip on my shoulder,

 

is one of loving hate. I hate that l love

them, love that I hate them. 

Hate the fascist whose boot heel cracks

wings of roaches, love the actor who died

saving the child in the hotel fire, though

they’re not around to take the green

rose of your love into their arms.

Mistakes are like penguins in tuxedos, 

 

dogs like Laika on Sputnik.  We test them,

try them out.  The mistake went way out

there and came back whole?  No,

she was a stray, died after only a few hours

in orbit, WTF, for the good of humankind.

I hate mistakes.  They made a mistake

sending that dog to the moon.  Look

at what they’re doing now in the Ukraine.

 

We in the United States are as screwed up

as the Russians, almost. Mistakes are like

regrets. They gave us Chekov, they took that

dog off the streets and named her Laika

to entertain the public, so little

kids could look out their windows at night

and say, Oh, Laika’s up there, 

a pioneer, a galaxy captain. This dog

 

in the end let us down. Disappointed she 

didn’t survive, disappointed in Laika, 

we turned to the Nixon-Kennedy.

Some thought putting a dog into space

the right move.  Were he alive

Chekov might have thought it was a big

mistake, a cruel experiment, 

Laika’s dying for Russia, for humankind.

Lakes

 

He’s at a lake and sees this guy beating

a puppy with the chain of a leash, tells him

to stop; the guy takes his cell (he’s calling 

911), throws it in the lake, threatens to beat

him up, he’s eighty years old, this is in North

Dakota, where he retired from practicing

dentistry years ago, lives with his second 

wife, and loves their three dogs and one cat.

 

When we met he was in dental school. We 

had a laugh when Amanda (his first wife) 

said her father said, I hope those protesters

aren’t disrupting (protester) Tom’s studies.

We met in Wilson Library’s smoking room, 

where they were non-smokers. I knew her

better than him.  She had long wavy hair, 

liked to laugh; he drove a gray VW bug. 

 

Our smoking room circle rippled wider,

into cafes, movie theaters, house parties.

One of us, Brian, became an MD, I was best

man at his and Theresa’s wedding; he, tall, 

blond; she, short, Japanese American from

Chicago.  I lost touch with them, and Steve,

Colleen, and Marty.   One night Amanda 

and I in the bug drove out to Lake Harriet

 

in the dead of night, looked around, nothing

more. Early one night a few years later she

came to my apartment, by that time, she 

and Tom had split up. She sensed I wanted

her, I could sense her edginess as she left.

I’d never wanted to sleep with her when she

was Tom’s wife, but I did that night. By then,

our circle broken up, I’d lived near Lake of

the Isles, in the top half of a house where

Kate found a dead mouse in the refrigerator,

I lived with her and her younger brother for

a year. Lake of the Isles is in the Mary Tyler

Moore Show, Mary on a tree-lined path in

winter is how it starts. I think they are Dutch

elms.  Tom would likely know. A dentist, he’s 

scientific, specific, likes steam engines, 

 

and loves his pets, which is our bond today, 

pets, animals. We haven’t seen each other

in forty plus years, same with Amanda, 

his ex, who likes flowers.  When he told me, 

not directly, but posted on Facebook

about the guy beating the pup, I wanted

to go up there and put my arms around him.

He was shaken up. Such a good man.

 

I don’t know why we lost touch all that time.

When we started talking again Tom had 

already retired.  Like me, he misses

Lake Calhoun, which I bicycled to; Harriet,

where I walked and one night I saw the poet 

Charles Rakoski; and Lake of the Isles. 

What happened to the sick dog beater?

Tom’s not one to let something like that go.

Peter Mladinic’s fifth book of poems, Voices from the Past, is out now from Better Than Starbucks Publications. An animal rights advocate, he lives in Hobbs, New Mexico, United States.