Peter Mladinic

SEVENTY-EIGHT DOLLARS

The late eighties. Since my
last visit home, you’d been on the jury
of a murder trial. A young
black man shot a black teenage boy
in a fast food restaurant
one night after the place had closed.
The man had been staking it out.
He entered through a back door
and ordered the girl employees
and the boy a cook to lie down.
He got seventy-eight dollars.
Before he fled he fired
two shots into the boy
who somehow phoned the hospital
but bled to death just when
the ambulance arrived. I don’t
know how the man was caught.
You said he had moved
recently from city slums
and that his mother
and father on the witness stand
were inarticulate, like they
weren’t aware of where they were
or of what was happening.
But the man had a brother
close to his age and this brother
was an executive for IBM.
You said it was strange
one was good, the other bad,
both having the same blood.
When the verdict was read
the one convicted of manslaughter
shouted obscenities, showed
no remorse. He was in prison.
You showed news clips
of the crime, the trial,
spread on your coffee table,
indelible in your mind.
You kept seeing the trial,
the family of the deceased,
the face of the killer. His name,
Alonso, was all I recalled.
And today, recalling your
account, I saw the kitchen
terrified eyes on brown
tiles drops of blood.


Peter's YouTube video reading of "Seventy-eight Dollars"


Peter confesses: "The source of this poem is an actual crime committed in New Jersey in the mid 1980s, I believe. A friend was on the jury for the trail, and he both told and showed news clippings about it. So it’s pretty much a crime poem that reflects a harsh reality."

PETER MLADINIC’s fifth book of poems, Voices from the Past, is due out in September 2023 from Better Than Starbucks Publications. An animal rights advocate, he lives in Hobbs, New Mexico, USA.

Peter Mladinic

THE DATING GAME

Rod Necessary, pleasure to meet you,
or Rod Necessary, the pleasure is mine.
Never Rodney, what my mother named me.
After the theme tune, part Monkees, part
Here’s Johnny, I heard bachelor number 3
Rodney Necessary. In polished loafers,
navy blue blazer, the collar of my lime
shirt spread over the lapel, I walked on
stage and took my place, dark waves of
Lustrous hair falling past my shoulders.

Like others, I was a referral, my accountant,
who’d been on tv’s The Dating Game.
When he’s not on a surf board in Santa
Monica, or riding his motorcycle or camped
out in the mountainous desert of Warner
Springs Rodney is a studio photographer.
I smiled at the audience. Bachelor 3,
if you were a food, what food would you be?
A banana. You could peel me later. What
is your favorite time? Night, it’s so alive

with sensuous mystery. A fine arts degree
from UCLA, a passing acquaintance with
Harry Callahan, I cooked Mediterranean
dishes, grew roses. My Italian loafers and
manicured nails cinched me as her choice.
The audience loved me! Yet afterwards,
a fluke made me not her choice to go out,
something behind my eyes. No red rose at
an opened door for her! Smart girl. Like
the one I picked up on the beach and drove

75 miles into the mountainous desert to
photo shoot, and rape, the girl who said
yes sir, no sir, talkative. I let her out to use
a gas station’s Ladies, the next thing I’m
in cuffs . My mother put up ten thousand
bail and I was set free..to rape and kill
Penny Williams, Cheryl Michaels, Barbara
Heidi, to name a few. I remember names,
and mementos: panties, nylon stockings,
the 11 year old Theresa Riley I got in my car

and in a room strangled, screwed, and took
out to a landfill. The Dating Game. My long
dark wavy hair made me a cinch to win.
I never watched it in my cell or in the rec
area. Lying on my cot I saw eyes of corpses
stare past me, at nothing. Now I’m no one,
nothing, a nightmare memory to ones at my
trial. I didn’t fry in the yellow mama
or get a needle’s goodnight kiss. Bachelor
number 3, What’s your favorite time? Night.


Pete's YouTube video reading of "The Dating Game":



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Pete confesses: "I thought it ironic that this 'human monster' not only appeared on but 'came out a winner' on this very popular TV show from the early seventies. This poem’s challenge, as with many, was what to include and what to omit. I purposely did not Google any information, but just 'went with' details I’d heard the day before, on the radio about the late Rodney Alcala."

PETER MLADINIC's fourth book of poems, Knives on a Table, is available from Better Than Starbucks Publications. An animal rights advocate, he lives in Hobbs, New Mexico.

Peter Mladinic

DELICACY

Lloyd, whose surname
will come
when I’m pulling into the bank
or on line at the teller’s window,

In an aisle of the cooler
saw me throw a broom
at my boss, Chuck Hinton.
“That was out of character,” said

Lloyd of the pressed suit,
the BMW,
a man I could speak to.
Hands folded
at his desk he waited
while I wanted to crawl
the heck out from
under his stare.
Shale Distributing was food.
What Lloyd didn't see
wouldn’t hurt him
or Shale, furtively,
down in the freezer. I heated
Cryovac packets of beef
between radiator slats.

Brown bubbles of juice
flavored beef.
I slit open the plastic wrap
and ate the slices.
Warm, delicious going down.


Pete's YouTube reading of "Delicacy":



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Pete confesses: "This poem took at least five years to write. The ending of is very different from what it was, say, two years ago. The two work-related incidents are taken from real life 1975-77. Both go against the work-ethic grain of the food distribution plant—but while one is overall negative, the other, the petty pilfering, is positive."

PETER MLADINIC's fourth book of poems, Knives on a Table, is available from Better Than Starbucks Publications. An animal rights advocate, he lives in Hobbs, New Mexico.

Peter Mladinic

HILLSIDE STRANGLERS

In Fritz Lang’s M
filmed in Germany in 1931
Peter Lorre plays the child murderer.
One by one, children disappear
off the streets. Who is it, taking
these lives? Finally found out,
chased, trapped in this huge cellar,
cornered, he turns on the crowd,
wild eyed, flailing, and accuses them.
You murdered the children!
It’s in German, so I had only
subtitles, but Lorre, trapped, cornered,
raging, is really good at playing evil.
A versatile, talented actor, he
emigrated from Germany, settled
in Hollywood and played many roles.
His one child, Cathy, in 1977
met up with the Hillside Stranglers,
cousins, Kenneth Bianchi and
Angelo Buono, imprisoned for life
after being convicted of killing numerous
women. They intended to kidnap
and kill her but when they learned she
was Lorre’s daughter, so enamored
were these two monsters of Lorre’s films,
if anyone deserved to be called
monsters, these two..they let her go.


Pete's YouTube video reading of "Hillside Stranglers":



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Pete confesses: "I am somewhat of a Peter Lorre fan, and somewhere in the media I learned that Lorre’s daughter, his only child, was taken by these serial killers, and when they learned who she was, being Lorre fans themselves, they let her go. It’s a bit ironic, to me. Also, in one of Lorre’s best films, M, he played a child killer."

PETER MLADINIC's poems have recently appeared in Neologism, Ariel Chart, Adelaide, Home Planet News, Detour Ahead, 433 and other online journals. He lives, with six dogs, in Hobbs, New Mexico.