Poem to Some of My Recent Poems

My beloved little billiard balls,
my polite mongrels, edible patriotic plums, 
you owe your beauty to your mother, who 
resembled a cyclindrical corned beef 
with all the trimmings, may God rest 
her forsaken soul, for it is all of us 
she forsook; and I shall never forget
her sputtering embers, and then the little mound.
Yes, my little rum runners, she had defective 
tear ducts and could weep only iced tea. 
She had petticoats beneath her eyelids. 
And in her last years she found ball bearings 
in her beehive puddings, she swore allegiance 
to Abyssinia. What should I have done? 
I played the piano and scrambled eggs. 
I had to navigate carefully around her brain’s 
avalanche lest even a decent finale be forfeited.
And her beauty still evermore. You see,
as she was dying, I led each of you to her side,
one by one she scorched you with her radiance.
And she is ever with us in our acetylene leisure.
But you are beautiful, and I, a slave to a heap of cinders.