Index for Anthesis:
Item 1 of Tome Of Stars
Anthesis: Introduction
The opening Item of Tome of Stars, titled “Item 1: Anthesis”, comprises nineteen poems that chronicle the flowering of a romance. It is named from the botanical term for the period during which a flower blooms. As with most of the poems in Tome of Stars, the language oscillates between intimate and mythic. Cosmic and classical imagery embeds a personal romance inside more metaphysical concerns. The poems in Anthesis haphazardly chronicle a narrative, from discovery and vulnerability to embraced adoration. Foundational motifs in the poet's mind are introduced and nurtured here, and will arise repeatedly in different contexts as the collection progresses and the relationship evolves. Overall, this section introduces the Stargirl as both a woman of the poet’s fancy and as a mythical figure to the poet's awareness, overwhelming in her effect on him, the material reality of human interactions crossing over to the transcendent and spiritual in his conceptualizations. These aspects will recur, be deconstructed, and forever haunt the verse (and the poet) in what follows. They set the emotional and symbolic architecture of the stage on which tragedy and transformation will unfold.
The “Item” structure of Tome of Stars is inspired from the recital program of a classical Indian dance called Bharatanatyam. The beloved of this collection was, among her many, many talents spanning arts, languages, and the sciences, a dancer of this tradition. Bharatanatyam became tightly associated with the Stargirl in the author’s mind, and when assembling this collection, he decided to attempt to structure it following the margam, the structured program for performances of this dance form (“margam” translated as “path” or “journey”). He did this in two ways. First, Tome of Stars was divided in six Items (how the different dances in the recital are typically called in English). These six sections are both thematic and chronological, spanning the beginning of the relationship (Item 1: Anthesis, the flowering) through its dissolution to the poet’s final unending, prolonged grief and emotional devotion (Item 6: Scripture). Within each item, the actual elements of a margam show up as individual poems titled by the item name. In these sonnets, the poet tries to meld traditional interpretations of the dance item with elements of their romance, separation, and/or aspects of the writer and/or the Stargirl. More can be found in the video linked in the Background section.
Dance, Stars!
Dance, stars!
Grace bright cosmic souls,
endless hearts
within lost skies.
Art flames upon star chains!
There lies Void’s
sacred madness,
a sweet, shattered
space of truth-pain.
Thus, kiss song-joy, magic mortal!
Beneath worlds,
divine, sublime gods
shall dawn tears
in wild touch!
I'll begin the analysis of verse with a poem that is an outlier in the collection.
"Dance, Stars!" was not written so much as it was assembled as poetically as possible from a word frequency breakdown of the remainder of the collection. (Seriously)
After finishing the first drafts of Tome of Stars, I did various breakdowns of the text searching for literary "tics", both known and unrecognized. Many automated tools exist to perform such work (which I’ve used for my novels in the past), and indeed I found I had even in this (relatively smaller as compared to my novels) collection a set of repeated phrases and words that could not be justified in their repetition solely by the needs of the poem but which likely find their deep roots in my subconscious. It is impossible to root out all such verbal traps, but one can reduce their occurrence.
As part of this, I had one such tool generate a word and phrase frequency list. Here is the word list from an earlier version of Tome of Stars:
dance 22, stars 22, bright 20, grace 20, cosmic 19, soul 19, spirit 18, endless 18, hearts 18, within 18, lost 18, skies 15, art 15, flame 15, star 15, chains 14, lies 13, void 12, sacred 12, madness 12, sweet 12, shattered 12, space 12, truth 11, pain 11, thus 11, kiss 11, song 11, joy 11, magic 11, mortal 11, beneath 11, worlds 11, divine 10, sublime 10, gods 10, shall 10, dawn 10, tears 10, wild 10, touch 10, shine 9, stellar 9, timeless 9, embrace 9, galaxies 9, kissed 9, beauty 9, sought 9, bond 9, deep 9, hope 9, spun 9, born 9, broken 9, dream 9, apart 9, prayer 8, transcendent 8, seek 8, shame 8, seas 8, spirits 8, stage 8, doom 8, embraced 8, fate 8, cruel 8, thousand 8, beyond 8, silent 8, darkness 8, glow 8, failed 8, flesh 8, break 8, chant 7, warped 7,, nights 7, sing 7, verse 7, pure 7, dread 7, fairy 7, hold 7, whispered 7, silence 7, distant 7, blind 7, dreams 7, steps 7, sight 7, sleep 7, sea 7, stargirl 7…..
The phrase list was most useful for exact reuse sins, prompting some reconsiderations and rewrites of some sonnets. The word frequency list also prompted changes, although this was more challenging. However, as I was looking at the list, my mind started stringing the most frequent words together into phrases. Before I realized it, I was composing a poem with the absurd constraints of (1) keeping the frequency order as much as possible and (2) not introducing any other nouns or verbs, but allowing myself to introduce articles, prepositions, and other elements (and at times modifying the words—changing singular to plural, verbing nouns, etc.). I mostly kept to the rules.
The end product shocked me in being not only a poem I enjoyed reading, but also one that felt like an eccentric but not inaccurate encapsulation of the collection. I then decided to include it as an Epigraph and Foreword, inaugurating the book.
Studying this poem itself (for my own meanings and word choice, etc.) is an analysis of a distilled version of Tome of Stars, the context lost in a mapping of meaning to numerical occurrence. The word choice is built into the manner in which the poem was created and reflects, in a direct but distorted manner, all the verse that is to come (that I do plan to analyze). To expand on why these words appear, and in the order they do, and what it means vis-à-vis the author's intent, would be to try to distill the planned poem-by-poem analysis into a single essay.
That I will not do. Instead, I'll leave it as a preview — a “teaser trailer” for what comes — as it both summarizes and also resamples to near meaninglessness what comes after, whatever my efforts to imbue a loaded word list with its own life.
Pro Logos Asteron
Each star, a story, scribed from cosmic dye,
In genres varied: reds, in golds, in blues.
Bright glyphs ignite the boundless Book of Sky,
Each separate sun spun from celestial muse.
Some shine with splendor, swift with flaming rhyme,
The breath of life, death’s detonation seeds.
The gentler gleam in warmth uncounted time,
Themes linger in the heart, deep meaning freed.
More cluster in anthologies of might.
Less chant alone, a sonnet in the void.
Black holes consume the words we dare not right,
Our faded froth of courage thus destroyed.
The stellar winds sculpt scripts beyond our sight,
With timeless lyrics launched in lines of light.
Pro Logos Asteron is a Greek-inspired neologism that is meant to mean something like "Prologue of the Stars." It's a meditation on the idea of the celestial realm as a metaphor for artistic exploration (of relationships, emotion, and meaning in this context). In this way, it functions as a poetic prelude that is a meta-commentary on the entire collection.
In this prologue, the stars are stories, each with its own nature and tale to tell. The poem considers the gamut of possible stories from triumph to tragedy, star birth to black holes, social groups to isolation. It gives the reader the "lay of the universe" in the poems to come where cosmology, myth, and emotion interweave in complex ways in the personal mental space of the writer. Most critically, it is centered on the lifelong inspiration the heavens provided to the writer and the life-altering encounter with the “heavenly body” of the Stargirl. She is the ancient force of astrometaphysics through which all is now measured and perceived by the poet. While she is not named here, Pro Logos Asteron would not exist without the Stargirl, and its full meaning is found within the rest of the collection that meditates on the metaphorical cosmic centrality of her being.
Pushpanjali
Beginnings must be harmonized with care,
For in each start, our universe shall shift.
A wise performer bows with gracious air
To men and numen, offering the gift.
In balanced charm, she skips with symmetry,
Her arms outstretched with blossoms intertwined;
Her feet, a brook with rhythm’s jubilee,
Yet rooted deep, like oaks strengthened by time.
A joyful shyness hops across her face—
The sacred light of reverence she bears.
Her palms in prayer, her arms the world embrace,
Her graceful bells ring calmly through the airs.
She mirrors Stargirl’s offer from above,
Creation’s blessing, wrapped in cosmic love.
“Pushpanjali” is translated as “offering of flowers” from Sanskrit. It is a ceremonial invocation and a symbolic beginning to Bharatanatyam dance performances with elements of ritual, art, and cosmic connection through offerings to a deity and the audience. At a meta-level, the poem serves as an introduction and offering to the viewer, stating emphatically that Tome of Stars means to be a serious, meditative, emotional, and sacred journey in the same way as the margam of Bharatanatyam. Stargazer is therefore also mingled with the abstract performer in the lyrics and the dancer who is his beloved (whom he sees incarnate in all dance), each making their offers in performance in a different layer of meaning.
The poem works on two levels. One is the obvious dance performance, a Bharatanatyam practitioner “skipping with symmetry” with “a joyful shyness” on her face. Her “light” is “sacred” as she tries to make sure the “beginnings” are “harmonized with care.” This is something true for most Bharatanatyam performances. However, the poem is also on another level about the poet interacting with the reader, and the literal dancing elements and purposes can be abstracted and applied to efforts in literature. And in both cases, a higher power “from above” is the ideal, explicitly named in the poem as the Stargirl. She thus is both deity to whom the dancer pays homage and mystic power who serves as muse for the poet.
Alarippu
On verdant stage, a rose prepares to prance,
Inhaling astral breath; her sepals wink.
To rhythmic beats, the bud shakes off her trance,
As limbs unwind, aroused to softly sync.
In graceful arcs, the petals stretch and bend,
Sure steps of symmetry, precisely placed.
Grand geometric lines their glamour lend;
Each stem and leaf their destined roles embrace.
Beneath starshine, a lush crescendo swells—
Potential bursts into kinetic power.
With fragrant splendor, stunning beauty melds;
The world’s rapt audience beholds the flower.
The cosmic Gardener, with fertile breeze,
Bestows her blessing on the dance, well-pleased.
Alarippu is a Tamil word meaning “the act of blossoming”, and is traditionally the first piece of a Bharatanatyam margam (not counting Pushpanjali, which often comes before it). Like the dance item of the same name, this piece considers in verse the awakening of the dancer's body, the opening of the flower from stillness to motion. Natural imagery is used to link dance and the cosmos itself. In the broader context of Tome of Stars, and especially the first item, Anthesis, Alarippu also functions on two other levels beyond the straightforward presentation of Indian dance. One is the blossoming of a relationship, that between the Stargirl and the poet. The other is like both Pro Logos Asteron and Pushpanjali, where the poem also functions as a meta-commentary on the collection, this time as a metaphor for the act of writing Tome of Stars. In that context, it signals the stirrings of expression and artistic purpose. The sonnet Alarippu is therefore functioning on three levels of direct dance, growing love, and the flowering of artistic effort. Like Pushpanjali, Alarippu ends by withdrawing to the divine perspective of the Stargirl, in these considerations mythologized beyond my beloved to a generative force of creation and growth (“cosmic Gardener”).
Trilogy
The first, a golden fairy springtide spawned—
I raised a temple, holy scripts adored.
She kissed another, and her heart was gone;
She left me shattered, all beliefs abhorred.
The second, born of brokenness profound,
I spurned romance—foul biochemistry.
I served her needs; in marriage vows was bound:
A lie, a cage, betraying her and me.
The third, the last—for magic comes at three—
Your hurricane of stars outshines their dust.
Fresh faith restored, a spirit symphony,
Until my ending I begin to trust.
Your star eclipses all I’ve known before,
My one true goddess, crowned forevermore.
This sonnet recounts three separate, sequential romantic relationships. Each is a distinct stage in the speaker's experience of love, and truth be told, his only experiences of intimate love. There is a first love (“springtide spawned”) that ends in betrayal and disillusionment with romance. The second is characterized by psychological pathology and pure duty without passion. The third describes the beloved who is central to the collection.
Trilogy is functioning as a retrospective device for framing the relationship with the Stargirl, using previous relationships to create a contrast with the impact and meaning of the beloved to the poet. It is therefore also serving as part of the introduction of the story near the beginning of Anthesis. There is a flashback to the poet’s past, a presentation of his mental and emotional states, missteps in life, and the transformative power in encountering the Stargirl.
The poem can in this sense be viewed as a romantic autobiography and its attendant emotional and spiritual dimensions. The structure is one of a triadic arc (thus, “trilogy”) spanning youthful romantic wonder and faith, cynicism engendered by loss, disastrous choices born out of that cynicism and also psychological trauma (from the poet’s youth, openly discussed in the Once Upon a Time poems in Senescence), and finally, transformation and a re-enchantment of the world. Each quatrain presents a distinct, temporal phase of this aspect of the poet’s life.
The beloved is presented in the verse as something more than a mere romantic interest, however deep. She is here framed (and often presented in this collection) as the culmination of a lifelong search for connection, meaning, and spiritual alignment. The vocabulary is extreme (and will become even more so as the collection progresses), foreshadowing impossible idealizations and tragic events they helped precipitate.
Starstruck
In ashen lanes, we limped in mindless swarms,
Through pallid oceans, faces blurred and bland.
Each body, rent by life’s indifferent storms.
Each psyche smashed—dissolved conceits of sand.
A stunning flare ripped wide our night’s black veil.
Flashed lightning split the forest’s ebony.
Dank dungeon doors cracked wide to sunshine’s gale.
Stark stellar blasts birthed new worlds spinning free.
Amidst our dragging dead, your flame emerged,
Chromatic sphere that burned away the blight.
Beams cosmic, straight through astral planes, converged,
Where blossomed embers warming our long night.
As moth to flame, I sought, possessed, undone,
Forever drawn to hold your blinding sun.
Starstruck narrates a “love at first sight” moment in transcendent, cosmic terms to reflect the subjective experience of the author (First Sight in the album In Darkness and in Light is another attempt to retell this hard-to-convey moment). It contrasts the suppressed, dead state of existence he felt as the daily norm with the transformative radiance in first becoming aware of the beloved.
Life’s routines and the people in his awareness are presented as empty, gray zombies in comparison to her being, which is described in astronomical and metaphysical terms. The couplet ending the poem combines this sense of revelation with an ecstatic surrender, hinting at a destructive obsession engendered within the writer (“As moth to flame, I sought, possessed, undone/Forever drawn to hold your blinding sun”).
The poem is a journey from numbness and nihilism to a personal epiphany. To convey this, the language shifts from images of death, colorlessness, and decay to light and cosmic rebirth (early words such as “ashen,” “pallid,” “rent,” and “smashed” are replaced by “flare,” “blossomed,” and “sun”). First person plural in the opening lines (we limped in mindless swarms) transitions therefore to singular “I” in the ending couplet, marking awakening, transformation, and salvation. Cosmological metaphors elevate the beloved beyond mere humanity (however special) to metaphysical considerations as she becomes an entity that interrupts decay and stagnation with healing and energy. The cost is that of the moth to the light, an unmaking not in decay but in consumption by a far greater power.
The title is meant to embody both colloquial and literal meanings. Starstruck in the modern vernacular describes the overwhelming impact from enchanting celebrity and beauty. This definition accurately captures the poet’s stunned reaction to glimpsing the Stargirl for the first time. But the very name Stargirl brings a literal and cosmic interpretation through Stargazer’s astromythic perceptions of reality. To be struck by a star paints a cosmic and cataclysmic interaction. The beloved’s revelation before the poet is a kind of celestial collision where his world is forever refashioned by the impact of a stellar force. This is beyond the level of infatuation, extending into some kind of existential rupture that is a mix of divine encounter and wound.
This duality is part of the poem’s tension between opposing aspects of her impact on him. Awe and devastation. Ecstasy and unmaking. Heavenly light and consuming flame. She is a star, but blinding.
Struck by a star.
First Arrow Owned
We waltzed betwixt ideas, our minds entwined,
Two intellects abstractly found embrace.
Beneath, a limbic pulsing, long confined,
Beat steadily in thirst for our spiced taste.
Amidst dry words, you launched across our space;
A charming arrow shattered every shield.
A finger, gentle, feminine in grace,
Caressed my arm, and so my doom was sealed.
All safeguards shattered with that single stroke,
Stout fortress fallen, every gate flung wide.
My self surrendered, older compacts broke;
I was your soulmate, you my ever bride.
From that one dart, your claim to me was sure;
I never healed, nor wished to find a cure.
This sonnet describes a transformative moment early in the relationship. What had been a "dance" between two people hiding behind professional masks (something touched on in Refraction as well), where the author had maintained a protective emotional shield despite his potent attraction to the beloved, was shattered by a single touch from her, a trivial, seemingly careless flirtatious gesture that nonetheless exploded his reality. The song likens it to Cupid's arrow through the heart, a piercing of the deepest, most central aspect of his person. Something that could not, nor ever would, be undone.
The poem serves as a key origin point in the collection. Where Starstruck was the “love at first sight” discovery of the Stargirl, First Arrow Owned occurs some time later after the poet had brought himself to her attention and they had interacted on several occasions. This key moment is when his professional and protective emotional armor was unmade by her choice to connect them physically, however fleetingly.
This extremism in his psyche makes clear that the poet’s emotional machinery is unusual and likely pathological. There is the near military imagery of self-protection from the world. Then there is the fact that when that is pierced, his emotional connection is instant, so deep that it is “ownership.” Flirtatious touches for most people do not carry such import or impact, the far end of that spectrum one-night stands where emotional commitment is brief or nonexistent.
Stargazer, however, suffers from underdeveloped emotional boundaries and maturity, likely products in significant part from prolonged childhood and adolescent abuse (see Once Upon a Time, parts 1 and 2). His beloved could not know the explosive potential of what was likely for her a far more innocent gesture, foretelling how even after their separation, while she was able to detach from their bond and assume an independent life, he was never so able, even after decades. Forever, deeply haunted.
Refraction
Staid statues spoke in ciphers, side by side.
With scholarship a shield, we froze, disguised.
Platonic masks were worn, but failed to hide
The incalescence of our breathless sighs.
We journeyed to jeweled temples where warmth spills,
And sunbeams arc through gemstones’ ardent art.
Dim worlds below dissolved, their madness stilled,
While dormant embers flickered through our hearts.
Your gaze met mine—a drive too wild to tame.
All thoughts removed, just motion and desire.
I pulled you near and stoked our secret flame,
Two flesh consumed in passion’s binding fire.
And in that private place, beyond all lies,
You gifted me the stars born from your eyes.
Short summary (more details to come): “Refraction” describes a charged encounter with the beloved early in the budding of their relationship. Like “First Arrow Owned”, the pair still maintained their “Platonic masks” where “scholarship” was “a shield.” The intimate encounter occurred within the seemingly passionless environment of a laboratory, but the facade of emotional distance collapsed in an unexpected moment of surrender.
Javali
The choreography then flirted wiles—
Coy narthaki, she winks her many eyes.
“I’d like to bite,” you teased me with a smile,
“And leave my mark.” Your face took sober guise.
She hops and skips, and spins, and hides her face,
Grin peeking over shoulders slightly bent.
“I want to own you.” Jealousy embraced;
You giggled breath like fire heaven sent.
The dance, a rhythm ripe with whispered charms,
Flows back and forth in love’s elusive flight.
One thousand gestures, prayed with open arms—
You shook me still, a puppet in your light.
She stopped, sublime and sensual her pose,
While drumbeats of my quickened breath arose.
Short summary (more details to come): This sonnet uses the Bharatanatyam dance item, Javali, to play out courting aspects of the lovers. Javalis are often flirtatious elements, reflecting elements in Indian dance often condemned during colonial periods for their celebration and portrayal of shringara rasa, the emotions of romantic and spiritual longing and obsession. The piece jumps between a stylized performance of a dancer and the real-world interactions of the lovers, focusing on the beloved and her desire to own the poet.
Synesthesia
Was it the bloom of apple trees in May,
Or temple incense from Nepal’s rich crest?
Perhaps warm toast with cinnamon’s soft spray,
Or saturated coffee grinds, when pressed?
Was it a rose, or honeysuckle’s kiss?
Or did the sea blow salt across my face?
Did forest spice dance through the air with bliss,
Or storm’s electric haze hide here this trace?
Did moonlight sigh, or sunbeams moan aglow?
Or had the dust of angels laced the air?
Did nebulae chant clouds of candied snow,
Or sing us skies of caramel in prayer?
Creation, tasteless, falters—and I dare
Breathe deep your twilight tapestry of hair.
Short summary (more details to come): This sonnet seeks to convey the overwhelming sensory experience of the beloved. Because language fails, odd and increasingly extreme “cross-modal” metaphors are used to recreate in the listener some echo of the disorientation her presence engendered. In the end, all the wild, even cosmic imagery is seen to be in the service of simply trying to express what it was like to be entangled with and smell her hair.
Kiss
Dry husks of sonnets stutter vapid rhyme,
While honeyed ballads drone discord undue.
Blind actors fumble gestures meant sublime,
Insult a touch that makes one soul of two.
I’ve swilled renewal in spring’s blossomed breeze,
Smelled the sauce of summer on my tongue,
Caressed steamed symphonies of winter’s seas,
Heard achings of prismatic pelts fall flung.
But brush your lips? Remake creation’s face.
To breathe your breath transforms my faculties:
Your spice, the cosmic essence soused with taste,
My mouth bewitched with flavor, passion teased.
Our bond transcends the starsong gods enflamed—
A heaven birthed for which I know no name.
Short summary (more details to come): Following immediately after “Synesthesia”, “Kiss” closely mirrors that sonnet by considering the abject failure of human art to convey intimate associations with the beloved, in this case a kiss. The poem considers and finds lacking multiple traditionally accepted media through which love can be portrayed, offering harsh judgements as the reality of the beloved and the simulacrum of art are juxtaposed. Like “Synesthesia”, this sonnet layers multiple sensory registers to try to break through the limitations of language. It ends with a simple admission of failure, where the writer has “no name” for his experiences. It is a self-referential, meta-critique in this sense.
Narthaki
The sum of summer’s sweat shall shape the strides
That slide sublime—her spins soon span the stage.
Such steps and stances, skillfully supplied,
Shall shield rehearsal’s stress, so none can gauge.
Not so with you, my lost, enchanted muse:
You may spend seasons in each item’s space,
But mudras, movements, winks, and smiles perfuse
Perfection promised from incarnate grace.
We watch you walk—a waltz of wondrous light;
Your gestures, gifts the goddesses refined.
Melodic words with nritya-hastas bright,Abhinaya of instinct, intertwine.
We laggards limp to learn life’s lofty dance,
While you, with wisdom, whirl in cosmic trance.
Short summary (more details to come): This is a sonnet about the beloved's elegance. It compares her to a classical Indian dancer (a narthaki), but contrasts the highly practiced performance skill of a dancer with the innate elegance of the Stargirl, ending by elevating her above all humanity.
Leaves of Stars
A verdant campus row of London planes
Stands sentinel to frame a tree apart.
You watched it glow outside your windowpane—
A beacon, haven for our hidden hearts.
Across the seas, where molten mountains sleep,
The banyan’s curtained chamber clasped us tight.
With gentle winds, in tender moments reaped,
We kissed—your locks of midnight dancing bright.
In Valinor, by trunks of silver-gold,
She blessed the gems that caught their holy light;
And Varda’s hand took dewdrops to unfold,
The stellar dance that glorifies the night.
Our radiance merged as those jewels divine:
Ten thousand leaves of stars, sweet breath entwined.
Short summary (more details to come): “Leaves of Stars” uses imagery of trees to combine elements of personal memory and Tolkienian mythology into a cosmic tribute to the beloved.
Jatiswaram
In boundless permutations, tone and beat
Heat crucibles where movement’s fire glows.
Refined, each gesture makes the art complete:
Both sound and step rock back and forth, and grow.
By planets’ paths, bewitching strides unfold—
Celestial leaps mathematical in place.
Spacetime entwines in movements brave and bold,
Surrendering to fractal, quantum grace.
Symmetric poses balance, harmonize,
Through cycles of the seasons and the stars.
The dancer navigates galactic skies;
Reflects life’s song through time as avatar.
Her blur’s creation’s microcosm bright,
To replicate the miracle of night.
Short summary (more details to come): This sonnet tries to capture the essence of the Bharatanatyam dance item, “Jatiswaram” (a pure dance element of rhythm and movement). It broadens the scope from the dance stage to the celestial stage, where choreography itself is given cosmic metaphors.
Ainulindalë
They walked the earth as mortals, yet divine—
Song angels! Birthed from thought, donned fleshly form.
Such raiment hid a majesty that shined,
And from their dreams, the cosmos would be born.
God-shapes obscure, oft hidden from our sight,
Their natures varied, primal powers wise;
And Varda, Queen of Stars, her essence, Light,
Spun constellations through her timeless eyes.
Her beauty danced in splendor, lighting space;
With hands in agni mudra, fire flowed.
She kindled jewels, the sky’s eternal face,
And so her name is called when darkness grows.
Within a nakshatra, your name’s enshrined,
And so, with you, my myths of youth entwined.
“Ainulindalë” traces how the beloved came to inhabit Tolkien’s legendarium in the poet's mind (his primary mythological framework developed in his youth), specifically tying her to the figure of Varda, Queen of the Stars (see Background). Raised in a secular home without religious myth or doctrine, he instead absorbed Tolkien’s cosmogony with spirited enthusiasm. Those tales expanded to fill whatever subconscious human needs he had for mythology (and they were more beautiful and awe inspiring to his tastes than those handed down by classical religions). Combined with a life-long love of astronomy and cosmology, his formative narratives and images centered around an odd combination of scientific naturalism (inspired especially by the heavens) and a literary mythos from Tolkien’s writings.
When the Stargirl entered his life, he found that his beloved’s name (a Hindu astrological term for a star system) resonated with this personal mythological structure. The poem begins with a celebration of Tolkien’s musical story of creation. Music is the metaphor of creation in the universe of Tolkien’s cosmogenesis. “Ainulindalë” means “The Music of the Ainur,” and is a chapter in “The Silmarillion” (Tolkien's great mythic book) presenting an account of this musical creation by the angelic powers (the Ainur, who, when they came into incarnate creation, were called by the Elves the Valor, or Powers).
Altogether, this sonnet explores how personal interests in music, astronomy, and the mythic architecture of Tolkien’s legends interwove with the conceptual and emotional space created by the poet’s beloved. This is most strongly realized in the figure of Varda, a transcendent figure in the legendarium especially connected to the stars and with whom his beloved was identified in his imagination.
It unfolds in the first quatrain with a presentation of the Ainur and the Ainulindalë (“And from their dreams, the cosmos would be born”). The second quatrain focuses from the Valar in general to the specific figure of Varda, establishing her title and connection to light. The third quatrain then incarnates Varda in the form of a generative dancer, fashioning the stars in her choreography. This ties together in the poet’s mind the mythic icon of the Star Queen with the person of his beloved, the Stargirl. In the couplet, the poet steps back with some self-awareness of his demented myth-making, confessing he is at some level conscious of the mental machinations involved in elevating his beloved to an impossible state.
Muse
Why do I weave these tapestries of thought?
What unknown urge compels me to create?
By craft, I feel life flow through what I’ve wrought,
Each keystroke born from love and framed by fate.
For whom do I compose this constant art?
Not for myself alone this passion burns.
“To make for others” flails to fill my heart—
Sad shadowed substance, void for what I yearn.
To sculpt for God? I sought, but dead words failed,
Divinity so distant, undefined,
Abstract, that dogma; while through space, souls wailed—
An endless echo even dreams don’t find.
I laughed! The timeless end rhymes sweetly true:
Before time turned, it’s always been for you.
Short summary (more details to come): “Muse” considers the cause of the lifelong creative drive of the poet. One after the other, different motivations/inspirations are considered, from sharing with humanity to divine offering, but all such reasons fail to resonate. The final couplet encapsulates a flash of insight, where the poet sees in a collapse of linear causality that his life's works have ever been in service, in offering, in supplication and gifting, to the Stargirl herself.
Storydancer
A stunning seeress conjures magic tales;
She spins a hundred stories on a loom,
Of lilting words that prance—a nightingale—
All eyes owl-opened, hearts in awe consumed.
Loved libraries of lyric lore bequeathed,
She stirs rapt hearts that drink her Vedic verse;
Each epic, bhakti song, purana breathed,
Invokes a psychedelic universe.
Yet art, most elevated, moves in dance;
Myths spoken turn incarnate and refined—
A thousand paintings in one practiced stance,
A million sonnets in the smile she shines.
Her star anoints with choreography,
And, long ago, she whirled her hymns for me.
Short summary (more details to come): “Storydancer” centers on the beloved's gift for storytelling. It begins describing her narration of Hindu tales but transitions to her narrative through dance in Bharatanatyam. It is celebratory and elevating, but tinged with sorrow and loss in the final line "And, long ago, she whirled her hymns for me".
Shabdam
Rich ragas rise while rhythmic ripples run
In lyric cycles, simple yet profound.
Sweet sonnets swell with tributes skyward sung,
As stirring stories, stellar sojourns sound.
Her stage transforms to canvas, grand and wide;
Her hands shall speak, her faces will implore.
From earth to sky the dancer deftly rides,
Wild cosmic waves that course through metaphor.
From seed to flower, winter into spring,
From thought to deed, transitions blend with grace.
As every movement’s beauty takes to wing,
Her dextrous turns morph to a lover’s face.
To deities, she lifts devotions bright,
So Stargirl shares her love’s transforming light.
Short summary (more details to come): “Shabdam” is the name of a Bharatanatyam item that serves as the first element in the margam beyond pure dance, introducing narrative and emotional expression. The poem mirrors this transition from pure dance to emotive storytelling by following the practiced steps of a narthaki through her motions, culminating in her presenting a “lover's face”. The song thus moves from the mythic and cosmic to the intimate and highly personal, always with the visage of the beloved in the poet's mind.
Vox Animi
The Stargirl’s names in music can’t be told;
A trillion dialects cannot keep pace.
Her compositions, restless spirits hold,
And resonate through minds in matchless grace.
Of all her gifts, her voice is purest art;
The gods themselves turn silent when she speaks.
A murmured phrase can still an angel’s heart;
In her soft sighs, the firmament grows weak.
One sentence strums a symphony of sound,
A lilting lyre of assonance and charm.
In her transcendent tones, we’re haven bound,
To hearths where every syllable is warm.
Through time and space, she spins her melodies,
Each note a star, her whispers, galaxies.
Short summary (more details to come): “Vox Animi” is about the beloved's voice. The song describes the actual melodic quality of her voice but also treats it symbolically, reflecting her elevated nature and creativity. Those aspects are painted in divine and cosmic dimensions. Her speech becomes a force that can silence gods and stir stars. And while seeming hyperbole, there seemed to be no other way to describe the impact she had on him.
Elentári
My love spins stars to life, a cosmic flare—
Her motion, fire, spraying sparks at night.
A crown of flowers blooms about her hair;
Her ankled bells, as prayer, sing pure and bright.
Rich nebulae unfurl their colored strands;
To touch her feet, the galaxies kneel down.
Ten thousand suns are sketched by subtle hands,
Each constellation, dressed with shapes profound.
So Krishna smiles, fey-charmed and in a trance,
Veils Parvati, her beauty stripped of sheen.
Bold Shiva wobbles, never knowing dance,
While Vishnu bows before the cosmic Queen.
She whirls, sublime, the first among divines.
And once, in heaven, I dared call her mine.
Short summary (more details to come): “Elentári” is the Quenya name for Varda, one of the most exalted of the Valar. It translates as “Queen of the Stars.” Varda is responsible for creating the constellations and is revered by the Elves. The name is also etched into a ring carried by the poet. As discussed in the description for “Ainulindalë”: “...explores how personal interests in music, astronomy, and the mythic architecture of Tolkien’s legends interwove with the conceptual and emotional space created by the poet’s beloved. This is most strongly realized in the figure of Varda, a transcendent figure in the legendarium especially connected to the stars and with whom his beloved was identified in his imagination.”
Natya Shastra
When Bharata mulled astral songs and dance,
Six thousand verses would enshrine the heart.
A thousand years, with rasa’s guiding trance,
Would bridge performance to transcendent art.
From Sanskrit scrolls, a treasure trove unfurled,
A beacon for aesthetic mastery.
A cultural opus, unknown to the world,
Lit India’s artistic tapestry.
Yet art transcends mere joy; its grace inspires,
And spirits soar to realms sublime, surreal,
Where wonders weave, whirl consciousness afire,
With sacred gospels mystically revealed.
So Stargirl sways—creation’s primal flame,
Navarasa incarnate in her name.
Short summary (more details to come): The Natya Shastra is an ancient text outlining principles of Indian performance in art and especially, dance. The song follows a lineage from these texts over centuries, culminating in the choreography of the Stargirl herself. She is a living vessel of human emotion (navarasa) and a divine creative force.