New Poetry by Peter Mladinic

Schaeffer Is Next

The next vape, the next corner

To turn, the next day, he drove

To Maidenrock.  It was a Saturday.

Schaeffer thinks of the adjective,

Then, next, please, please added

To soften the blow that one is next,

Whether one likes it or not.  Schaeffer

Thinks, I’m next.  He thinks:

The next vampire film, the next

Trip to Walmart, the next bite

Of the apple, the next diver

To leap from the plane and pull

The parachute string to soften the fall.

Don’t sit under the apple tree

With anyone else but Kim Kardashian West

Don’t sit under the apple tree

With anyone but Derek Jeter

With anyone but Taylor Swift

With anyone but a descendent of Clyde

Barrow, with anyone whose surname

Is Lake

Don’t do it, don’t sit there with

Casey Anthony, Susan Smith

Or Charles Manson

The next vape, the next hero

The next vampire, the next banquet

The next moment, who knows

Anything might happen:

A river might flood,

A tree might catch on fire.

There’s the Rita H angle

How she was glamorous in her voice

Her eyes, her long wavy red hair

Her spangled dress that hugged her hips

Glamorous in her walk in how she moved

Back and forth on stage

Under the spotlight in Gilda.

Then, spin the wheel of time forward,

Say, twenty years and find her

Alone in a room.  Dementia

Has taken over.

She is cared for, incontinent

Can’t wipe herself or wash her

Once lovely hair.  Oh,

The waking nightmare bird

Perches on her shoulder

That was once bare and aflame

With lust, all of her.

- © Peter Mladinic 2021

Peter Mladinic has published three books of poems: Lost in Lea, Dressed for Winter, and Falling Awake in Lovington, all with the Lea County Museum Press.  He lives in Hobbs, New Mexico.