In the looming days of my dotage
I look back for my hubris
to my exuberant, earlier poems
-slick, spiky and sophisticated-
and give them once more
their friendly nod of approval.
And through my warm afterglow
I see a clear drawn image
of the Emperor Nero
with bright, mad, heavenward gaze
fiddling happily
on the deck of the Titanic
unconscious of the facts that
all that remains of his audience
is a disordered row of empty deck-chairs
and the sweet, swirling sound that surrounds him
is not the music of his own creating.
This was an apology to a member of my group upset by a tasteless doggerel
I recited at one of our meetings. I believe it was accepted as sincere penitence
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