Cleaving pessoa

The Bridge

“Fernando Pessoa’s disguises
were assumed out of the
conviction that poetry is more
real than the poet.”
—Michael Hamburger,
“Multiple Personalities,”
The Truth of Poetry: Tension in
Modern Poetry from Baudelaire
to the Nineteen Sixties

Thank you—I am Dennis Kelly.
I’m the first—USA Fag Poet Laureate
I was very pleased—to come across
My name in Wikipedia—the Encyclopedia

I plan to donate—my $1,000,000 salary
To the esteemed—Wikepedia Foundation
As well as to—Google and Youtube
To please Gay Posey—and the Dyke Muse

To be or not to be—American chic
To be suave & sophisticated—to be camp
To be Metrosexual—Manhattanesque
To be Whitman again—the Brooklyn Ferry

To be Hart Crane—standing there
Gazing out the window—Columbia Heights
My sailorboy lover—still sleepingnaway
What a crisp morning—New York skyline

The Bridge—the Seagulls
The way they lean—into the Breeze
How can I possibly—pull it off right
Spanning Ages—with cables of Words?