Vox Populi
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Daniel Edward Moore: The Fire Island Boys
Warhol wasn’t the only one who loved those Fire Island boys; marble statues cloaked in sand, whipped by pleasure’s summer storms. Caution fainted on a thousand zippers, a thousand eyes and tongues. There was no such thing as a stranger’s bed. Every mattress played the same song; Love as if loving makes you immortal, carving a valley of light through the shame; the crippling years of closet-shaped posture, breaking the spirit’s spine. Those were the days of aquatic ecstasy: steam baths swirling with deep sea divers trading their handfuls of pearls, risking their lives in the dangerous caves of some other man who had to be entered to prove how good, how beautiful he was, even if only for an hour. If I could weep as loud as they laughed and rage as hard as they loved, maybe the young wouldn’t die so fast; alone, on the edge of a viral abyss wailing at the red autumn moon; God waking up to the sound of his sons, washing the sand from their eyes.
Copyright 2022 Daniel Edward Moore
A native southerner, Daniel Edward Moore currently lives in Oak Harbor, Washington on Whidbey Island. His book, Waxing the Dents, is from Brick Road Poetry Press.
Vox Populi 
“If I could weep
as loud as they laughed and rage as hard
as they loved, maybe the young wouldn’t die so fast; alone,
on the edge of a viral abyss wailing at the red autumn
moon;” Such great imagery and language in this poem!
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thanks, Laure-Anne. Daniel’s poems are a new discovery for me. I’m glad you like this one.
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