The poem is a single line, and it packs its whole feeling into one contradiction: a "present absence." Something is missing, yet its missingness is so strong that it fills the room. Think of an empty chair at a table, or a phone that stays silent. The lack itself becomes a kind of presence.
The speaker seems to be caught in that state, and the word "desperation" tells us it is painful rather than quietly sad. There is a sense of reaching for something that cannot be held. The title, "The Damned," adds weight. Judging by it, the speaker may see this endless longing as a punishment, a condition people are condemned to live in, rather than a passing mood.
The mood is bleak, tense and haunting. With so few words, the poem leaves a lot of space around them, and that silence echoes the absence it describes. We are left to decide who or what is missing.