Dad is a geneticist He works in the transgenic manipulation sector the military sponsors his experiments with lightning quick dogs Blue marshmallows with the eyes burned in with a hot needle they are all neutered males one of them escapes it attacks a little girl when I find her her finger is ripped to the bone Mid-morning sun curdles my thoughts I rush her to the nearest business a repo shop they can sew her finger back on Her tiny white body is as light as a heap of dust Her greasy red tears stream down her face like the coils of a drainage snake A slight Korean man with a pot belly stands in the office He wears black sunglasses a short sleeved hospital green shirt and he smokes a fat cigar He speaks in slow motion as electric blue and green bubbles rise out of his mouth He warns me "There will come a day when a generation will be born never knowing life without chemical stimulation" His teeth are serrated and layered like a shark I deliver the girl's small frame to his outstretched stout arms As I turn to leave I notice a reflection of light in his sunglasses it lies there like a pile of archaic books I think to myself "Hate burns too hot and the strong prey on the weak I'm only looking for a way out of these new dark ages" After all I am my father's son

"I'm being chased by my white shadow" you say Obsidian singers walk above red lights below you a bluejay skates across a constellation of trees Mucous covered wax-like figures twirl in the fields Pepsi dribbles down your chin the sugar is a magnet for dust Your Uncle Eddie's eyes twinkle and his smile shines in copper flames he nicknames you "Hillbilly Jack" but your cousins call you "City Boy" You were thin and sickly growing up a victim of fever dreams You bend to pass a fallen tree the bluejay with blackberry eyes stoops to stare at you You move toward the bird Animals come to you that others do not see You notice the trees lengthen along their evergreen spines like a moist dark cave Two bears copulate with grotesque passion You enter the field where Indians in full regalia waltz with the rhythm of the drum You hear the anodyne of your grandfather's voice fade with each breath until it is an inaudible whisper You close your eyes a German hobbyist asks "Did you go to the powwow today?" You open you eyes and shake your head "No, I didn't know there was a powwow today" He looks behind you and smiles "That's alright" he says absently "We've only just begun"

The first time I realized my own mortality, I was high on mushrooms in a cow pasture along Highway 9 in Snohomish, WA. I was 15 and I skipped school with Alex and Joette to pick mushrooms and make Shroom tea. We rode our bikes. Alex had picked them once before, so he was our field guide, "Make sure you pick the slimy ones next to the cow shit!" We picked mushrooms all morning in the chill late September air. We rode our bike back into Snohomish to an apartment a block and a half from the high school to make mushroom tea. The earthy taste could not be masked by honey. As we waited for the effects, we played with a Ouija board. My hand was on the planchette as Alex tried to summon a ghost. As it began to move, it felt like granite against my fevered hand. I recoiled instantly and demanded we leave. My senses were so deranged I couldn't ride my bike. I got separated and ended up in a cow pasture. The cows were dancing on the horizon and the cars on Highway 9 were sleek and silver, whizzing above the road. I realized I was in the future and at first I was thrilled, then it dawned on me that everyone I knew and loved was dead and I was truly alone. This thought terrified me. I felt myself begin to float above my body, the only way I could come back down was to fall face forward, back into the earth and back into the present. I made my way to some old man's driveway. As he approached me, he looked like a purple and yellow mushroom. He said, "You're gonna have to move on." I felt I was at a crossroads and this wizened mushroom man was there as my ally. "Where should I go?" I asked. "You've gotta go one way," he pointed down the road, "or the other," he pointed in the other direction, "but you can't stay here." This struck me as the most profound advice I'd ever received.

As the quiet type, I am a magnet to sociopaths, people with what the shrinks call, "antisocial personality disorder." They perceive my silence as a void to be filled with their ego. They say I'm a "good listener," yet I feel drained of energy, as lethargic as a sloth, after one of these "discussions." At first, psychic vampires exude charm and confidence, full of interest in their victims lives. They speak in conspiratorial tones, implying a deep connection. Invariably, there's nothing deep about a psychic vampire, they are shallow by nature. It's the old bait and switch, once hooked in, the mask comes off and the victim sees the true face of the beast. They will eat your time and shit out your soul, then ask for more.

The hashtag is the ampersand of the 21st century Let's all pretend to be rich white people #just another day in America Oh, good. Sherman Alexie has come out with another book, sucking the air out of the room, whining about his shitty childhood #Sherman Alexie is not my spirit animal #guilt don't mean shit #this is resistance, right? If you want to know how the pyramids were built, ask the workers who built them #16 tons and what d'ya get?

Iron pellets of rain close the gate on the east sky Clouds swirl at a hungry pace toward a mountain mask carved from the shadow of bones The summit's areola brushes the clover green pinhole sky A single note descends on the hushed peak Coloring the wall of my room in a forest of paper A salty wind punches a hole in the fabric of the wall opening to a meadow where a pale redhead released from the boundaries of nightshade dances to the downpour tempo My pupils harden into black glass beads The blood in my green veins hardens into the sap from a Ponderosa pine I reach for her full-bodied naked wide hipped sway Her body turns into the waves of an ocean and in the isthmus of dusk we are clothed in half light The rain unfolds the sheets from the bed The Hunter's moon hums on the telephone wires dislodging the stitches in my throat opening a vocal window at the edge of a cumulus beginning

I walked above the surface today there is no grass there are no stars I wear a mask made from the shadow of bones Feral cats dart across my path like cockroaches in the light they are the stormtroopers of the night I hear their whispers mingle in the dark periphery they dream of a new feline order a vision of vacant lots fire escapes and sidewalks swallowed by vines The shadow people rise Life hammers nails of experience into my bloodshot eyes Buildings crumble raped by the woody spear of Evergreens The lakes have melted the foundations of the world This is after the fall There are five levels of forgetting I am in the fourth Two medics pull her through the hallway "It's not heroin!" she smiles through yellow fibrous teeth like tree branches made of antique porcelain "I'm just sick" she repeats Pig eyes peer through doorway cracks There is an unheard language which surrounds us if only we could rise above the chaos of the ordinary world The music in those unspeakable words would carry us to the stars There's a Ferris wheel in the distance Wake up tomorrow we make the ancestor totem there is grass there are stars

He sits in the smallest room of a three bedroom apartment on Carrer de la Garrotxa. He has been left behind by his Brazilian roommates, who could no longer stand the dead-eyed Latin stares on the subway. He looks at his body like a machine, nothing more than an object composed of organic systems and chemical reactions. Outside his third floor window, women push there children across the courtyard. They gather under shade trees, smoke cigarettes and gossip in Catalan. He watches alone, aware of his every movement, his every spoken word, as if they were being compiled and documented. He considers the implications of an unspoken conspiracy, functions so innate, they are taken for granted. He catches himself, unsure if he's spoken the words aloud. He imagines Dostoevsky in the moment before an epileptic seizure. He remembers the electric blue circle, which surrounds his rolled back eyes at the moment of orgasm. He wonders at the blissful surrender of self to the dusk between sleep and dream, moments of suspicious clarity and connection. He wants to dream in lucid reality, he wants to verify his isolation tactics, he wants to escape the Christ incinerating machines. His only guide is a map, left in a drawer, from 1963.

The # is the & of the 21st century Anyone who lived through the '70's never pined for there return #nostalgia is necroculture #whatever you do, don't get old If you're going to chase the dragon, you better like pursuit #it's never too late to become a junkie #junkies make the best spaghetti I'm wearing a phantom sombrero made of woven headaches #margarita meltdown #John Barleycorn was here Eyeballs are the catcher's mitt in the game of light #perception is 9/10ths of the law in physics I'm a silhouette in the theater of life, a shadow puppet in Plato's cave #musta been high #in da couch Velveeta or Brie? Progressive or Traditional? City or Rez? Cuzzin' or not? #questions from time immemorial #ask yer Auntie #NDN genealogy is like algebra Romulan ale is the Four Loko of Star Trek #Kirk wakes up in Spocks' bed #plot twist #Vulcans have excellent memory recall The black cat of sabotage has awoken from her heavenly slumber and she is furious #the gears of capital are maintained by our labor #the working class and the employing class have nothing in common #general strike

I can crush the headwinds of anyone's eyes The eyes of stars lined up spattered with a thousand reflections Looking glass eyes with wings like liquid hummingbirds Canned laughter of callused eyes drunk in the daylight Pale membrane of Safeway chicken swallowed by the jaws of red eyelids Soon there will be just an island filled with sea level voices "I never want to see you again" she says dry as a transcontinental phone call "under any circumstances" The chambers of my heart explode with the gasoline of the stars The morphine of sleep lays under my head in the silence that follows Scars are the currency of forgetting

It is snowing, you decide to go see your father. The snow clings to your body in patches of white. You walk for miles in the high desert. Day becomes night. You continue to walk in silence, silence becomes your trespass. The earth wears flat beneath your feet. It is either daybreak or sundown when the snow stops. In the half light, a coyote springs across the highway. In the darkness of a blink your eyelids thaw. When you open them, an old teacher stands before you. He says, "The Creator gives each of us the first and last five minutes to do as we please." You can hear the echo of his words choked on the voice of the wind. Your father resides in the old Santa Fe penitentary. You walk to where crows peck the eyes of dogs and cats left dead on the road. A canopy of stars appear across the asphalt sky. You look up and count the stars. You count to four hundred and eighty and drift off to sleep. You dream of a quarter page article in the New Mexican. Billy Graham claims that the songs of the King are based on direct concepts from Ralph Waldo Emerson. Hidden within this message is the return of the messiah, as prophesied in the Book of Forgotten Conclusions. When you awake, the follicles of your face look like Rip Van Winkle. You are on the deck of a cruise ship, the dark, salty waves lick at the thin smile of the moon. You leave your cabin to find the bar. The passengers speak an unfamiliar language. You order, "Rum and Coke, please." Cats crawl and mewl along the deck of the ship. Starlight bends in the green beams of their eyes. Your palms begin to sweat, they smell like aluminum. You wonder about bloodlines and the sins of the father. Your chest fills with carbon putty. Daylight enters in iron, grey fidelity. Your eyes begin to cross from the glare in the porthole. A calico lays above the headboard, like a black halo above your coffin. You receive attention from three doctors. Each is the top in his field. The first can only relieve the pain, the second is psychotic and wants to kill you. The third saves your life. In fever dreams, a voice tells you, "Rabbits are bad luck if they touch you." Dad is drunk. Twenty years of AA gone. There is no disappointment, only a sense of reunion. He asks you, "What have you been doing lately?" In the silence, he smiles. You think, "Recording the chaos from the end of a cigarette. Transforming day into night, silver into dreams and gold into lead. Dwelling in the fierce borderlands between sunrise and sunset, following the crooked beak of a crow into the carrion eye, pecking at the yellow bile of yesterday's hide, smoking the white dust of Grandpa's shadow." What you tell him is, "Listening to the sound of the radio become wallpaper."