LatinosUSA

Notes on Culture  
                                                                                                               
A quiz show host, my show You’re Doing It
All Wrong, before contestants come on,
I throw to the audience, not my clip-on
bow tie and fake jewelry, but culture.
Here, have some Camille Paglia,
a little Alice Walker, how about some Dick
Yates. Over here, for you, a Mark Rothko.
Here’s some Bertrand Russell, for you
Hannah Arendt, and for you Chris Connor,
singer of torch songs in clubs.
 
Nude Descending a Staircase                                                                                                                                                                   

Marty walked downstairs, out to his parents’
living room naked, to our shocked delight.

Tom, Colleen, Carol, Brian, Terri, you and I.
Maybe Staci was there that morning.

Where is Terri, whom Brian was dating
before he met Joyce? Where is Marty?

I dreamt I visited you. I thought it odd that you,
a retired dentist, lived in an old apartment

complex of red brick and dark wood.
I looked out a big window, at cars

coming and going on a gravel drive;
no one I recognized, no one we knew.
 
New Jersey                                                                                                             

I’m the path at the bottom of the ridge
and the garden by the river.
Even though I don’t live there,
that’s who I am. I’m the pipe
at the mouth of the creek, so tall
you can stand in, I’m shade
beneath long willow sheaves
in a corner where I lived.
 
Vagabond                                                                                                                

The fallen world is
stars and
transgressions.
A vagabond hops a boxcar
outside Scotia, Nebraska.
To fight is not his future.
In another life he grows roses.
An autumn morning
silhouette in the sun,
close to earth.
© Pete Mladinic

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Author Biography

Peter Mladinic was born and raised in New Jersey. He graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1973 and earned an MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Arkansas in 1985. Professor emeritus at New Mexico Junior College, where he was a member of the English faculty for 30 years. During that time, he was a board member of the Lea County Museum and president of the Lea County Humane Society. An animal rights advocate, he lives in Hobbs, New Mexico, USA. Peter Mladinic’s most recent book of poems, Maiden Rock, is available from UnCollected Press.