THE LOVEMAKER AND OTHER POETRY by Robert Mezey

The New Stylus: Issue I

The Lovemaker

I see you in her bed,
Dark, rootless epicene,
Where a lone ghost is laid
And other ghosts convene;

And hear you moan at last
Your pleasure in the deep
Haven of her who kissed
Your blind mouth into sleep.

But body, once enthralled,
Wakes in the chains it wore,
Dishevelled, stupid, cold,
And famished as before,

And hears its paragon
Breathe in the ghostly air,
Anonymous carrion
Ravished by despair.

Lovemaker, I have felt
Desire take my part,
But lacked your constant fault
And something of your art,

And would not bend my knees
To the unmantled pride
That left you in that place,
Forever unsatisfied.

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N. W.

On a certain street there is a certain door,
Unyielding, around which rockroses rise,
Charged with the scent of a lost paradise,
Which in the evening sunlight opens no more,
Or not to me.  Once, in a better light,
Dearly awaited arms would wait for me
And in the impatient fading of the day
The joy and peace of the embracing night.
No more of that.  Now, a day breaks and dies,
Releasing empty hours and impure
Fantasies, and the abuse of literature,
The lawless images and artful lies,
And pointless tears, and the envy of other men.
And then the longing for oblivion.
                                                    after Borges

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Evening Wind

One foot on the floor, one knee in bed,
Bent forward on both hands as if to leap
Into a heaven of silken cloud, or keep
An old appointment—tryst, one almost said—
Some promise, some entanglement that led
In broad daylight to privacy and sleep,
To dreams of love, the rapture of the deep,
Oh, everything, that must be left unsaid—

Why then does she suddenly look aside
At a white window full of empty space
And curtains swaying inward? Does she sense
In darkening air the vast indifference
That enters in and will not be denied
To breathe unseen upon her nakedness?
                                                              after an etching by Edward Hopper

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Robert Mezey (1935-2020) was an American poet, translator, critic, and academic. He studied at Kenyon College, the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and Stanford University, and he taught at Pomona College from 1976-1999. His poems, prose, and translations have appeared in many journals, textbooks, and anthologies. His poetry collections include The Lovemaker, White Blossoms, A Book of Dying, The Mercy of Sorrow, The Door Standing Open: New & Selected Poems, Couplets, Small Song, Selected Translations, Evening Wind, Natural Selection, and Collected Poems 1952-1999. Mezey received many awards for his poetry, including the Robert Frost Prize, the Lamont (for The Lovemaker), an award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Bassine Citation, a PEN prize (for Evening Wind), and the Poets’ Prize (for Collected Poems).

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