Land of the Lotus Eaters

Yes, Tony Hoagland, I, too, am asleep in America. And its noise is invading my dreams; my alarm clock becomes the sound of traffic outside, Oprah becomes the sound of my sophistication, porn becomes the sound of my idling thoughts. When I'm fortunate enough to wake for a moment I realize it's all as senseless as the time I chased Frankenstein across Mexico on a train with no tracks or the time I fled from zombies in New York by jumping from building-to-building and dodging the nets they threw at me (yes, zombies wield nets, and do so quite well).

And just as we all dream of falling, of breaking off our teeth, of showing up late for class naked, so, too, do we all dream of having consequence-free sex with beautiful strangers, caring about the mundane exploits of recognizable celebrities, and treating teachers with less respect than men who race cars for a living.

No, I, too, am asleep. And when I wake I am too upset by my dreams to get out of bed and wake up the few people I can. I wait for Odysseus to carry me away to his ship, since only a hero can do what is so far beyond the reach of the rest of us. I know that he's never going to arrive, and yet I'm too afraid to awaken even one of my companions by myself because I know I can't wake them all.