Frenzy and folly,
Gaudy music and fantastic dancing,
A moving party of
Scarlet, orange, golden, green, blue, and purple.
Glittery “dames”,
Circuit swells,
Fashion fancies,
And erect wantons
Step stately and deliberately out of bounds.
Security within,
The eccentric takes care of the bizarre.
For sixty minutes during the sixth month,
A dense crowd of friends,
Gay and straight,
Are entertained
And inspired by a life of courage.
—a mashup using words only found in Edgar Allan Poe’s The Masque of the Red Death (1842)
Dennis lives in Seattle and works professionally in theatre. He has two books published through Coffeetown Press (Shorn: Toys To Men In 2011, and One Gay American In 2012) as well as numerous short stories and essays around the web. The piece included in this issue (73) of Burningword Literary Journal will be part of a 40-poem anthology entitled Flit: A Gay Man’s Poetry Mashup Of Classic Literature, which will be released by Coffeetown Press in October 2015.
