Lucky Strike in hand
talks to me in telepathic memory of an old man,
“I went to war with Lucky Strike.”
Lucky Strike says, “I’m not a flaming teeny bopper Camel,
Marlboro Smoke.
I am nostalgic. I am America’s past.”
I say, “Take me away Lucky Strike.
I want to go to an adventurous land.
I want to flirt with evil Nazi white Anglo German Girls.”
Girls do you feel lucky today?”

Zippo click, light drag
The strike in Lucky Strike is striking me dead.
cough, hack
I don’t taste the luck.

Summer sun suffocates.
Our breath grows shallow.
Veronica, a friend, makes it to the top
of North America’s tallest dune.
Her silhouette strips.
An hourglass shadow casts away clothes.
I climb the last ten feet
in a Bridget Bardot curved shade.

Oh, she’s so beautiful.
My mind silently repeats
“flowers are pretty in mountain meadows.”
Dare not let the imagination wander to
“flowers are also pretty on satin sheets.”

I lay in the sand nude.
The full moon overhead
suspended in a blue sky.
Veronica plays in the sand.
I close my eyes
to daydream,
fueled by her aura.

I awaken to grain shifting
and an unfamiliar desert smell.
Veronica lies by my side.
“Are you wearing perfume?”
She replies, “Yes, Pleasure.”
I ask, “Like the relaxing effect of laying
in the desert sand
on a tired body?”
“No, pleasure indulging
in sex under the full moon
suspended in a blue sky.”

Ah soft:
French style wheat/sourdough bread.
Question: Can a sandwich be a sandwich without bread?
Can Europe be Europe without France?

Ah mild, sharp, etc:
different types of cheddar cheese compliment one’s current mood.
Don’t think about the fat content.
Enjoy the indulgence into your own psyche.
The jack Hindu thanks the Jersey Cow.

Ah pleasant on the tongue:
crisp veggies– lettuce, tomato, and onion.
The veggie biogenetic engineer searching for an idea
Observes two pictures of Bridget Bardot and Kate Moss.
The engineer yells, “Carumba bigger is better,” and starts work on the super tomato.

I would believe her
except for the dark circles
beneath her eyes,
the product 
of a sleepless night.

Sometimes I wish
she would wear makeup
like a majority of woman
who hide their nonverbal communication
with rosy cheeks and wide awake eyes
so when she says, “YES, JUST TERRIFIC”
we can pretend together.

Might have felt god in the grass between my toes.

Might have seen god in the undeveloped skyline.

Might have heard god in a blue jay’s chirp.

Not sure if I do believe in god

but at least I feel at peace.

The next year

a church had been built

in the field

where god might have been.

There I met a loud, guilt-driven, reincarnated Adam Smith.

He collected dollar bills

that read, “In God We Trust.”

He calls them testimonies of faith.

I told the preacher about the field

so he took me to the gift shop

and said, “You’ll find all that peace

in this consumer Jesus doll for $5.00.”

So I bought it.

He then proceeded to pray,

“May this Christ-like bobbling head

forgive your sins,

corporate salvation save your soul.’

Not sure if I believe in God

but do know I’ve been swindled.

an outdoor recreation store.

The store’s not so much geared

to the REI-minded individual

who gets off

on the aroma

of French pressed coffee

and oohs and aahs at beautiful sunsets.

This store is for the person who

thinks the smell of gunpowder

comforts like a lavender scented candle

and would eat the outdoors

to extinction

if hunting weren’t regulated.

At my table

I sit underneath a print

of a hungry mountain lion

jumping onto a scared elk.

My belly immediately

connects with its animal belly spirit.

At this moment I could pounce on

an omelet.

The server brings out

an omelet

that has an odd-looking cheese

oozing out of the corner.

The cook shoots my appetite to death

with a processed rubber cheese slug.

So what if the omelet is fluffy

and comes with fresh fruit on the side?

Oh! The pain of processed cheese!

I feel like a hunter who rips

into an elk

to find cans of SPAM.

My heart is her landscape
which through the evolution
of our love slowly grows
like the Pacific Northwest.

The above poem
got me into her pants.
The above poem
gave my life of u-turns, stops and goes,
a future with direction.

The unplanned pregnancy
led to planned marriage,
planned mortgage and
planned credit card debt.

After several years of living
the perfect family plan
described every four years by politicians
I’ve begun to feel like a cookie cutter
who can shape out of dough
the perfect gingerbread family
but the cookies taste like shit.

I feel like a janitor
at the Louvre–
after a while you don’t appreciate
or even notice the art.
The only thing that stands out
is the smell and sight of dog shit
left by a customer’s shoes
who checks out the Mona Lisa
because she has become
a pop culture icon.
They don’t try to understand her smirk,
only worship her watered down cultural status.
How many people walk away
unfulfilled
only to find meaning
when they can brag to their friends
that yes they have seen the Mona Lisa?

Please write me a letter.
I want to see how stable
your pen is in perfectly shaped sentences.
Then watch the words take on your madness
with each crossed out thought
and sloppy caricature.
Remember last winter when you went to get
the mail and the kids, Bob and Bev, locked the house door.
At first you tried knocking politely then smashed
the window pane to let yourself in.

I want to see your fingerprints’
images smudged in black ink.
Do you recall holding hands in bed
while reading?
The comfortable silence between the two of us.
Not always having to
entertain with sex, booze, or conversation.
Only needing two books and touch to sustain
love.

I want to smell and see where you are.
Take me to Denny’s with the odor of cigarette smoke
and coffee stained saturated paper.
Do you remember eating mozzarella cheese sticks
at 2:30AM after dancing?
What a crazy evening of drinking wine in an alley
stair well. Laughing at the drunken voices overhead.

I want to find the short black curly hair
that shows up in the oddest places.
To recall one last time the night in
Salt Lake City where we impregnated our
dreams into our heads and bodies that eventually
blossomed into who we were—man and wife.
If nothing else, a piece of DNA to show my friends
“this is you.”

I want to see a tear stain
where love use to be.

I want to hold as much of you
as I can one last time.

Promise me our relationship
was more to you
then ones and zeros.