the ones chewing bits of hay and sighing

If I had been T.S. Eliot, I wouldn’t have written "The Waste Land."
As myself, however, I do plan to write it, but not with a typewriter,
and I will never turn it over to Ezra Pound’s manic red pen.
In fact, I will not even publish "The Waste Land." Instead,
I’ll whisper it to white doves that constantly appear at my window
wearing bib overalls and green mesh trucker caps, the ones
chewing bits of hay and sighing that they’ve had a scant harvest.
Then I will write "The Canterbury Tales" for vocal ensemble,
eat part of it and set fire to the rest on my kitchen table.
If I had been Geoffrey Chaucer, I would have worn Chuck Taylors
and ripped up jeans and winked broadly at my shyest students.
I would not have written "The Canterbury Tales" or "Troilus
and Criseyde," "House of Fame" or even "Parliament of Fowles";
I would have been busy drinking my daily gallon of wine
or dispensing it to the dames of Kent with the expectation
that they would get really drunk and try to pants me. Pantsed,
I would hop on them or at least play hopscotch with them
well into the wee hours as the Kentish stars winked down at us.
If I had been Shakespeare, though, I would have written "Hamlet."
That was a good idea, all things considered. Kudos to Shakespeare.

[Aaron Belz {1971- } 'the waste land' from Lovely, Raspberry]