If Sylvia Plath Wrote “Wild Geese”

“Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver, as Rewritten by Sylvia Plath

I would not go snake-blind 
in the burning bore of sand,

would not parch and prostrate
to call you prophet.

You, who have bagged and tagged
and tracked my feathered heart 

with your mad dumb science
back to your clutch?

I took my wings and turned to stone.
Not a good one, but I’m free.

My symmetries revert and spin.
X-ray cameras beam their rays through me

and I scatter. Anything can be a wing.
My transmutation, my right angles, my beating heart.

I will not subjugate myself to beauty.

Emily Dickinson’s “I’m Nobody” as Rewritten By T.S. Eliot

Because, once again, we lose our names
Once again we watch some turn to a series
of numbers, some to ash.
The mystic paraphrases the language of math.
We live in the failure of letters, and may yet.

We drink at the café, Aegina brings us coffee and stronger drinks.
Coffee and liquor metronome that guns will turn to bombs.
May the atoms that make us up bring us together again.

Prometheus shall never flee.
Let us hide in spark and shadow
lest our horror sell the war.
Prometheus shall never flee, but we will not be the ones
to tell the world. That is the domain for leaders among men;
great men must swallow their wounded voices.
The words they speak in war may be wasted,
syllables inside the night and fog.
Great men must speak that their voices transmit through the air.
Lord, we live between facelessness and fire.
Lord, show us your face now and take the fire from our shaking hands.
Lord, take our shaking hands.

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