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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. 20 9 ...

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