Love Alone

Eighteen Elegies for Rog

Paul Monette

• Publisher: Open Road Media
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781480473782
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: American Poetry
• Index: Literature

Paul Monette's fierce and arresting collection of poems on the death of his partner from AIDS
Following his partner Roger Horwitz's death from AIDS in 1986, Paul Monette threw himself into these elegies. Writing them, he says, "quite literally kept me alive." Both beautifully written and deeply affecting, every poem is full of anger, sorrow, tenderness, and a palpable sense of grief. With graceful language and emotional acuity, Paul Monette captures the enormity of a loss that ravaged a generation. But even more than they are about tragedy, these poems are about love. Each moving line is full of love for one who is no longer there, but whose presence is still achingly felt at every turn.  Love Alone is remarkable for its honesty, its passion, and its depth.
This ebook features an illustrated biography of Paul Monette including rare images and never-before-seen documents from the Paul Monette papers of the UCLA Library Special Collections.

I

Here

everything extraneous has burned away

this is how burning feels in the fall

of the final year not like leaves in a blue

October but as if the skin were a paper lantern

full of trapped moths beating their fired wings

and yet I can lie on this hill just above you

a foot beside where I will lie myself

soon soon and for all the wrack and blubber

feel still how we were warriors when the

merest morning sun in the garden was a

kingdom after Room 1010 war is not all

death it turns out war is what little

thing you hold on to refugeed and far from home

oh sweetie will you please forgive me this

that every time I opened a box of anything

Glad Bags One-A-Days KINGSIZE was

the worst I’d think will you still be here

when the box is empty Rog Rog who will

play boy with me now that I bucket with tears

through it all when I’d cling beside you sobbing

you’d shrug it off with the quietest I’m still

here I have your watch in the top drawer

which I don’t dare wear yet help me please

the boxes grocery home day after day

the junk that keeps men spotless but it doesn’t

matter now how long they last or I

the day has taken you with it and all

there is now is burning dark the only green

is up by the grave and this little thing

of telling the hill I’m here oh I’m here

No Goodbyes

for hours at the end I kissed your temple stroked

your hair and sniffed it it smelled so clean we’d

washed it Saturday night when the fever broke

as if there was always the perfect thing to do

to be alive for years I’d breathe your hair

when I came to bed late it was such pure you

why I nuzzle your brush every morning because

you’re in there just like the dog the night

we unpacked the hospital bag and he skipped

and whimpered when Dad put on the red

sweater Cover my bald spot will you

you’d say and tilt your head like a parrot

so I could fix you up always always

till this one night when I was reduced to

I love you little friend here I am my

sweetest pea over and over spending all our

endearments like stray coins at a border

but wouldn’t cry then no choked it

because they all said hearing was the last to go

the ear is like a wolf’s till the very end

straining to hear a whole forest and I

wanted you loping off whatever you could

still dream to the sound of me at 3 P.M.

you were stable still our favorite word

at 4 you took the turn WAIT WAIT I AM

THE SENTRY HERE nothing passes as long as

I’m where I am we go on death is

a lonely hole two can leap it or else

or else there is nothing this man is mine

he’s an ancient Greek like me I do

all the negotiating while he does battle

we are war and peace in a single bed

we wear the same size shirt it can’t it can’t

be yet not this just let me brush his hair

it’s only Tuesday there’s chicken in the fridge

from Sunday night he ate he slept oh why

don’t all these kisses rouse you I won’t won’t

say it all I will say is goodnight patting

a few last strands in place you’re covered now

my darling one last graze in the meadow

of you and please let your final dream be

a man not quite your size losing the whole

world but still here combing combing

singing your secret names till the night’s gone

Your Sightless Days

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay

—DYLAN THOMAS

I remember clearly deciding not to see

anymore myself this out of sheer protest

or only see what I could tell you the whole of

art was out so was anything new the buff

hillside gone to grass was just our speed

but of course I was always minimizing

as if to say there’s nothing to see today

it’s the same old thing Rog sycamore’s bare

park full of Seurats but hey feel that breeze

and knowing how clear Aegean blue your eyes were

please I know what I watched go out but even

when it struck us down blacked our windows

like an air raid even then your glimmering half

sight was so seductive What do you see

I’d ask you coaxing every street sign like

they were glyphs off a ruined temple night

would fall you’d frown Are the lights on Paul

and tear my heart all the Bette Davis lines

out to get us but oh my dearest every one

was on spots flashes searches long white tubes

like the swords in Star Wars candlepower fit

for a Byzantine s...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Frontispiece
• Title Page
• Contents
• Publisher's Note
• Epigraph
• Preface
• I
• II
• III
• A Biography of Paul Monette
• Copyright