The Hallucinogenic Rooster is a moment captured in time, a dreamlike and nightmarish expansion of one brief moment. In a place called Fairy Tale Town, some years ago, I walked with a girl I was in love with among grimy fantasies; a concrete Pirate ship, a castle and drinking fountains in the form of hippos and tin soldiers. Strange music came over loudspeakers. Three of us (we were baby-sitting her sisters infant) as a sort of makeshift family walked in this strange place. I watched a rooster walk in and out of shadows and light. I hallucinated that I was seeing its molecules and atoms coming apart and reassembling in bright colors. I chose this event to represent the moment when we could have spoken to each other with our hearts but instead kept our silence. . . This book is a sort of poetic expansion of that brief, lonely and beautiful moment.