THE ABSENCE OF THE LOVED

WADE STEVENSON

BLAZEVOX[BOOKS]
Buffalo, New York

The Absence of The Loved

by Wade Stevenson
Copyright 2017
Published by BlazeVOX [books]
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without
the publishers written permission, except for brief quotations in reviews.
Printed in the United States of America
Interior design and typesetting by Geoffrey Gatza
Cover Art by Wade Stevenson
First Edition
ISBN: 978-1-60964-274-7
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016957457
BlazeVOX [books]
131 Euclid Ave
Kenmore, NY 14217
Editor@blazevox.org

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BlazeVOX

To the woman whose absence at last became presence

To every captive soul and gentle lover

Into whose sight this present rhyme may chance,
That, writing back, each may expound its sense,
Greetings in love, who is their Lord, I offer.
Dante, Vita Nuova

When you left, my amorosa,

Is it any wonder I still grieve?
The glowing red of the evening sky
Shows even the sun declines to leave.
Anon

Table Of Contents
Kiss Me Goodbye ........................................................................................................................... 15
Self-Portrait ..................................................................................................................................... 17
Neither Time Nor Distance ....................................................................................................... 18
Letting Go, Not .............................................................................................................................. 19
Cry Without You ...........................................................................................................................20
Absence Oyster .............................................................................................................................. 22
Hide And Go Seek ........................................................................................................................ 23
You Are Rushing Tonight .......................................................................................................... 24
Jumping Jack Man ........................................................................................................................ 25
White Suns ..................................................................................................................................... 26
Tallying The Loss ......................................................................................................................... 27
My Fine Feminina ........................................................................................................................ 28
Proud As A Vokswagen Carrying Peacocks .......................................................................... 29
The Promised Ring ....................................................................................................................... 30
The House We Lived In ............................................................................................................... 31
You Leaving .................................................................................................................................... 32
Cry, Baby, Cry ................................................................................................................................ 33
When The Wind ........................................................................................................................... 34
In My Room .................................................................................................................................... 35
Stars .................................................................................................................................................. 36
Ancient Love .................................................................................................................................. 37
One Month...................................................................................................................................... 38
Invocation ....................................................................................................................................... 39
Youve Gone Away ...................................................................................................................... 40
Your Absence ................................................................................................................................. 41
Lost In You ...................................................................................................................................... 42
Oy! Oy! ............................................................................................................................................. 43
Mistress Of The Mattress ...........................................................................................................44
Turning Point................................................................................................................................. 45
In Deep ............................................................................................................................................46
Blue Is The Light ........................................................................................................................... 47
Nothing Like A Knife ................................................................................................................... 48
You Are Chalchiuhtlicue ............................................................................................................49
You, Vanished ................................................................................................................................ 50
Can You Ever Touch ..................................................................................................................... 51
At The Bottom Of Things ........................................................................................................... 52
The Last Flames Flicker .............................................................................................................. 53

After The Final .............................................................................................................................. 54

Heart Stains .................................................................................................................................... 55
The He And She Of It .................................................................................................................. 56
In The Darkness, Inventing ....................................................................................................... 57
Language Of Love ......................................................................................................................... 58
A Single Night With You ............................................................................................................ 59
Stay ................................................................................................................................................... 60
Meeting You With Matches ....................................................................................................... 61
Reflections....................................................................................................................................... 62
What Departure Does ................................................................................................................. 63
Absence Lesson ............................................................................................................................ 64
Warning ........................................................................................................................................... 65
Gulag Of Absence ........................................................................................................................ 66
Your Last Letter ............................................................................................................................. 67
I Remember You .......................................................................................................................... 68
Dont Tell Me ................................................................................................................................ 69
When You Were Here .................................................................................................................70
Daily Thoughts ...............................................................................................................................71
Empire Of Your Absence ............................................................................................................ 72
You And Me .................................................................................................................................... 73
My Wish .......................................................................................................................................... 74
If You Came Back .......................................................................................................................... 75
Dialogue .......................................................................................................................................... 76
The Solitaire Game ...................................................................................................................... 77
Loves Arc ........................................................................................................................................ 78
The First Day................................................................................................................................. 80
You Were So Kind ........................................................................................................................ 81
Colors Of Our Love ...................................................................................................................... 82
Auto-Critique ................................................................................................................................. 83
So Its True ..................................................................................................................................... 84
Harvest Fire .................................................................................................................................... 85
First .................................................................................................................................................. 86
Must I? Must You? ........................................................................................................................ 87
What Happened? .......................................................................................................................... 91
Remember, Love ........................................................................................................................... 92
The Materiality Of Mourning ................................................................................................... 93
Naked Horizon .............................................................................................................................. 94
Ask Me.............................................................................................................................................. 95
Losing You ..................................................................................................................................... 96
As A Lover, To Love You ............................................................................................................ 97
Saying Goodbye ........................................................................................................................... 98

Touching You ................................................................................................................................99

Do Ut Des ......................................................................................................................................100
What You Did ...............................................................................................................................101
There Is Just One Thing ........................................................................................................... 102
Absence, Where Is Thy Sting? ................................................................................................ 103
Bird Song ....................................................................................................................................... 104
The Weeping Willow ................................................................................................................ 105
Loves Last Light .......................................................................................................................... 106
My Faraway One ......................................................................................................................... 107
How Long ...................................................................................................................................... 108
I Am Not Going To ............................................................................................................... 109
How Much Longer? .....................................................................................................................110
You And You Again ......................................................................................................................111

Afterword By Sandra Fluck ...................................................................................................... 113

THE ABSENCE OF THE LOVED

Paris, April, 1969

Buffalo, January, 2017

KISS ME GOODBYE

Kiss me goodbye
Its time we opened our doors to other lights
My beautiful one, once we were royal
We swallowed lunar fish together
Let ourselves be birds of all passion
Or beasts on prowl at every feast
Kiss me goodbye
I cant help you anymore
Nor you me
The years are airplanes
Your blue eyes are ocean calm
Because they foresaw everything
Knew what would remain
What would riptide away
Kiss me goodbye
The messengers of fate are passing
Coveys of barges under the bridge
I cant call you by your name
A soldier is knocking at the door
Were standing at the foot of a mountain
This morning we were born for something else
Your breath is smashing into me
Your body, joy-jewel, has raked me in love
Like the pages of ten thousand books
Kiss me! I want to laugh again
Know the wings of tulips,
The garden adrift in green shadow
Take your shivers, the balconies
Of beauty, your wetness, your maidenhair
Kiss me goodbye quickly!
I want to be carried toward something else
I want to leave this lunatic sobbing
Why cant love stop like the clock of the seasons?

15

Why cant I stop crying out, voyager amid the peaks,

Help! Help! For Gods sake, help!

16

SELF-PORTRAIT

Well, its winter again

Hes endured so many months
He doesnt even know how to talk
Plus, hes lost you
Yes, his love popped
Gone, finished, kaput!
He loved you too much,
The feeling over flowing him
Like water the basin of a fountain
And hes hungry and angry
Hangry! His irreversible life
Is running in reverse
He wants to shout Help!
Yet he doesnt dare
His elbows tremble
His head squeaks with pain
So he keeps looking at the window sill
One breath, inhale! One leap, his fate
Would be sealed and fulfilled

17

NEITHER TIME NOR DISTANCE

Black coffee is made. Another grey morning

Slithers in. I wont get angry at myself,
Another man used to quiet sorrow.
The easy paths are all blocked, no way
To a more peaceful tomorrow.
My maddened mind paces in a circle,
No one promised it would be fair
Im just another mask in a puppet play.
My tongue screams out in joy:
Youve just released my head
From a terrible black ache!
Strange, I cant feel the wounds or cuts!
Its odd to be so happy
A passion for you drove me crazy
Daffy as a schoolboy on leave,
The heart raced, tugging at the sleeve.
Whats given up in the relinquishing?
Is it better to be of love relieved?
No lets begin again, in Amor believe.
Come back: this severed self will submit
Neither time nor distance will resist.

18

LETTING GO, NOT

Im a bulb
Globe of sun
Dangling
Im pulp
Hard cool shining
Core of darkness
Stained with your lava
Im suspended
By filaments
In a vacuum of my own making
From my life which was called you
Im an egg of light
You robbed me of the yoke
You blackened my white
My body a clotted fireball
My mouth yelps
I glow and flash like a bulb
In dark rooms bright with absence

19

CRY WITHOUT YOU

You better go back home where you belong!

My Mama said!
Cry like a leper! Go! Go!
You cant go back!
You have to die!
Ill hide all my money in the bellies of the cows
Bury my love in the earth shadow
Of the woman whos gone, yeah!
Be with me now, work with me now, pray with me now
Ive come down! How!
Garbed in the livery of loneliness/despair
I shoot on toboggans toward destruction!
I froze with you
I covered the gigantic snow woman with brambles
Sat on a chair propped between her thighs
Thinking of you
Oh, one day your hips will swell again with me
Woman who refused matter!
You detested clay!
You both hated and loved your flesh!
Im not a coward if I cant!
Ill close my eyes
Squeeze them so tightly together
That youll rise up and start revolving
Like diamond Ferris wheels in my mind!
When one morning my violet eyes snap open

20

It will be you!
It cant be but you!
Until then Im sleeping like a leper
At the bottom of the white valley
Of the most vicious, violent sleep imaginable!

21

ABSENCE OYSTER

Itll be all right

Even if I cry
Ill make it to the first level
Youre waiting at the top of the pyramid
I rode elevators up into you
When Im not grieving I trumpet destruction
Or I throw lighted matches
Into the blue cone of your absent skirts
The world lives perpetually under seas
And here comes melancholy
Long and eternal
Like water on a canal
But Im not afraid
Even if I sit alone in darkness
At this bitter blazing table
Sucking your absence like oysters

22

HIDE AND GO SEEK

You, little patch of light

How you struggle
To get out
Of
The corridors
Of
Myself
You stand
On the springboard
Of a silver flute
And pirouette
Until you feel free
But your absence
Is
So thick and dense
I can play hide-and-go-seek
Within the memory mist

23

YOU ARE RUSHING TONIGHT

We met each other like points

In space, red and blue triangles
Connected across time
Lonely angles joined
The plane of our bodies juxtaposed
In this void of time/space
I like a red sun
You with your compass needle
You used to magnetize me
I spun across white deserts
I balanced on a bar above you
I lived the myth of your lilac mystery
You blazed in oblong azure
We measured the distance
Between stars and trees
Energy caught, transformed
Shifting nebulae, novae of light
Controlling the urge to panic
In the silence of those vast spaces
We rushed toward each other
A haunting dynamic

24

JUMPING JACK MAN

Green bars dive

Through yellow surfaces of light
Blue stairs arch upwards
Across shadow-slatted lawns
Sea clouds mark the horizon
Now blurred, now crisp
Somewhere golden dogs sip iced tea
Out of silver bowls on summer patios
Life slips by, smooth, easy, wonderful
But I am gridded with you, abraded
Your lines crisscrossing, intersecting
Me at every possible point
Ive become a jumping jack man
Smoothed, like dough under a rolling pin
See how rockets shoot up
Over the black-gashed, slashed fields
Reminding me that you are still there
I pour myself out
Like dice from the cup of the sky
Seeking the magic throw, the combination
That will bring you back to me again
I am a rap gun
Loaded with kisses
I shoot you over and over again
I am a cartridge
Inserted in the revolver of absence
Waiting for the triggered release

25

WHITE SUNS

White suns spawned

From red suns
Yellow suns grow out of
Crossed bars of a window
You have taken away the book
In which I was written
Like a desperate star I dance
Hands flailing in the air
Seeking to find home again
You stole the guitar
Upon which I was strung
I loved the twang
Vibrating penetration of sound
None came
You simply rushed past me
Express train on a track to elsewhere

26

TALLYING THE LOSS

My loss cannot be tabulated

I feel like buckling in the dust
Grief is a well-lit casino
I sit by the sea and listen
To it as to a poorly tuned radio. Your
Departure has made me a heretic
How can I feel whole or energetic
When the yellow mass of my body burns
Slowly at the bottom of empty drawers?
I dream of pharmacies to restore myself
A pill to abbreviate what is happening
I need to find some twist of luck
But I will go and mine the shafts of memory
Seeking my only love in the gold of time
Your dancing footprints will always define
The spaces where you last were seen

27

MY FINE FEMININA

In the mornings when you got up

The bathroom awoke with you
Put on maquillage
In order to look fresh
When you floated through the stair fog
Throwing your slip aside, climbing nude
Into the tiny matchbox tub
The hangers that held your dazzling clothes
Did a silent Broadway boogie-woogie
To welcome you, my fine feminina
I brought an almond croissant to your bath
Pink, aglow with the water
Music moved with your knees, the morning
Arched, slender, long as your back
Which I scrubbed with love
Until like a soap bubble, tender feeling
Soared in the air and shone all day long,
My lost lovely feminina

28