“Tome of Stars” is a 100 sonnet journey, equal parts art, therapy journal, and exorcism, both a celebration and an elegy, a single narrative arc tracing the birth and death of a relationship. All poetry by Stargazer. The verse and accompanying synthetic art and music are public domain, CC0, with no restrictions on use. Nothing is monetized. See below for links on how to access the print, PDF, audio, ePub, video, and music files. 
Website: https://www.tomeofstars.net/

In the classical margam of bharatanatyam, the varnam is the recital’s centerpiece, its longest and most emotionally charged performance. In “Tome of Stars“, the varnam appears as the twenty-nine-poem section “Senescence”. Following the exaltation of Anthesis, the beloved as a celestial goddess, love now descends from the stars into the gravity of human frailty. 

This sonnet concludes the “Once Upon a Time” quartet by chronicling the poet’s ultimate failure to escape the psychic inheritance of his past. Framed in mythic diction and dark fairy tale motifs, the poem articulates the moment when the poet’s inner defects (learned self-betrayal, compulsive guilt, emotional paralysis), drive away the only force of redemption he has ever felt: the Stargirl. She departs not in tragedy but in judgment, her magical grace revoked. The tone is accusatory but inwardly directed; the poet owns his doom not as random misfortune, but as the inevitable result of a life shaped by shame and self-annihilating loyalties. This final rupture is mythologized as a fateful and irreversible exile from the light.

***********
Lyrics

A baleful hex, a yoke of darkest wight,
Ensnared his mind in chains of hateful lies.
This wrath of lunacy recoiled from right,
Lest he condemn himself in his own eyes.

Past cancer poisoned, through his spirit chewed,
Excreting slimes of toxic empathy.
The tears of others drowned all he breathed true,
Thoughts paralyzed by noxious sympathy.

Thus, Stargirl—magic’s child—arose in flight,
Aggrieved he loved her less than love’s just claim.
His heart, too frail to stand, too quick to blight,
She judged unworthy—pierced, forever shamed.

His doom complete, he reaped fate’s final spell.
Her light was gone. The portal shut. Night fell.

***********

Internet Archive
Book of sonnets:
https://archive.org/details/tome-of-stars/

Music:
Item 1, Anthesis: https://archive.org/details/Anthesis/
Item 2, Senescence: https://archive.org/details/senescence_tomeofstars
Item 3, Sporogenesis: https://archive.org/details/Sporogenesis_TomeOfStars/
Item 4, Anemochory: https://archive.org/details/Anemochory_TomeOfStars
Item 5, Quixotosis: https://archive.org/details/Quixotosis_TomeOfStars
Item 6, Scripture: https://archive.org/details/Scripture_TomeOfStars

Bandcamp:

Item 1, Anthesis: https://stargazer-elentirmo.bandcamp.com/album/anthesis-item-1-of-tome-of-stars
Item 2, Senescence: https://stargazer-elentirmo.bandcamp.com/album/senescence-item-2-of-tome-of-stars
Item 3, Sporogenesis: https://stargazer-elentirmo.bandcamp.com/album/sporogenesis-item-3-of-tome-of-stars
Item 4, Anemochory: https://stargazer-elentirmo.bandcamp.com/album/anemochory-item-4-of-tome-of-stars
Item 5, Quixotosis: https://stargazer-elentirmo.bandcamp.com/album/quixotosis-item-5-of-tome-of-stars
Item 6, Scripture: https://stargazer-elentirmo.bandcamp.com/album/scripture-item-6-of-tome-of-stars

Once Upon a Time Part 4

“Tome of Stars” is a 100 sonnet journey, equal parts art, therapy journal, and exorcism, both a celebration and an elegy, a single narrative arc tracing the birth and death of a relationship. All poetry by Stargazer. The verse and accompanying synthetic art and music are public domain, CC0, with no restrictions on use. Nothing is monetized. See below for links on how to access the print, PDF, audio, ePub, video, and music files. Website: tomeofstars.net

The opening section of “Tome of Stars”, titled “Item 1: Anthesis”, comprises 21 poems that chronicle the emergence and flowering of a romantic relationship, structured around the botanical metaphor of anthesis, the period during which a flower blooms. 

“Jatiswaram” strives to evoke the structure and energy of the Bharatanatyam item of the same name (traditionally a pure dance sequence emphasizing rhythm and movement), while extending its imagery into cosmic and metaphysical registers as a meditation on the nature of motion, time, and cosmic order. The poem begins in the technical language of dance in an evocation of the technical precision and interplay of music and choreography. It then transitions into astronomical and quantum frameworks, expanding that motion outward into planetary orbits, spacetime, and the dance of subatomic patterns. Through increasingly expansive metaphors, the dancer is envisioned as not merely performing within time and space but shaping them: her body becomes a conduit for elemental and celestial energies. The final couplet connects this motion to creation itself, culminating in the poetic act of reflecting Varda’s mythic crafting of the stars, suggesting the dancer’s motions are themselves generative and divine.

***********
Lyrics

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.

***********

Internet Archive
Book of sonnets:
https://archive.org/details/tome-of-stars/

Music:
Item 1, Anthesis: https://archive.org/details/Anthesis/
Item 2, Senescence: https://archive.org/details/senescence_tomeofstars
Item 3, Sporogenesis: https://archive.org/details/Sporogenesis_TomeOfStars/
Item 4, Anemochory: https://archive.org/details/Anemochory_TomeOfStars
Item 5, Quixotosis: https://archive.org/details/Quixotosis_TomeOfStars
Item 6, Scripture: https://archive.org/details/Scripture_TomeOfStars

Bandcamp:

Item 1, Anthesis: https://stargazer-elentirmo.bandcamp.com/album/anthesis-item-1-of-tome-of-stars
Item 2, Senescence: https://stargazer-elentirmo.bandcamp.com/album/senescence-item-2-of-tome-of-stars
Item 3, Sporogenesis: https://stargazer-elentirmo.bandcamp.com/album/sporogenesis-item-3-of-tome-of-stars
Item 4, Anemochory: https://stargazer-elentirmo.bandcamp.com/album/anemochory-item-4-of-tome-of-stars
Item 5, Quixotosis: https://stargazer-elentirmo.bandcamp.com/album/quixotosis-item-5-of-tome-of-stars
Item 6, Scripture: https://stargazer-elentirmo.bandcamp.com/album/scripture-item-6-of-tome-of-stars

Jatiswaram

“Tome of Stars” is a 100 sonnet journey, equal parts art, therapy journal, and exorcism, both a celebration and an elegy, a single narrative arc tracing the birth and death of a relationship. All poetry by Stargazer. The verse and accompanying synthetic art and music are public domain, CC0, with no restrictions on use. Nothing is monetized. See below for links on how to access the print, PDF, audio, ePub, video, and music files. Website: tomeofstars.net

The opening section of “Tome of Stars”, titled “Item 1: Anthesis”, comprises 21 poems that chronicle the emergence and flowering of a romantic relationship, structured around the botanical metaphor of anthesis, the period during which a flower blooms. 

“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. 

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.

***********
Lyrics

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.

***********

Internet Archive
Book of sonnets:
https://archive.org/details/tome-of-stars/

Music:
Item 1, Anthesis: https://archive.org/details/Anthesis/
Item 2, Senescence: https://archive.org/details/senescence_tomeofstars
Item 3, Sporogenesis: https://archive.org/details/Sporogenesis_TomeOfStars/
Item 4, Anemochory: https://archive.org/details/Anemochory_TomeOfStars
Item 5, Quixotosis: https://archive.org/details/Quixotosis_TomeOfStars
Item 6, Scripture: https://archive.org/details/Scripture_TomeOfStars

Ainulindalë

“Tome of Stars” is a 100 sonnet journey, equal parts art, therapy journal, and exorcism, both a celebration and an elegy, a single narrative arc tracing the birth and death of a relationship. All poetry by Stargazer. The verse and accompanying synthetic art and music are public domain, CC0, with no restrictions on use. Nothing is monetized. See below for links on how to access the print, PDF, audio, ePub, video, and music files. Website: tomeofstars.net

The opening section of “Tome of Stars”, titled “Item 1: Anthesis”, comprises 21 poems that chronicle the emergence and flowering of a romantic relationship, structured around the botanical metaphor of anthesis, the period during which a flower blooms. 

In “Muse”, the poet investigates the origins and purpose of his lifelong creative drive, particularly in writing. The poem unfolds as an introspective search, a meditation on potential motives: personal fulfillment, service to others, religious devotion. Each is considered in turn and ultimately found inadequate. The structure reflects philosophical inquiry: posing a question, offering a hypothesis, then systematically dismantling it, until the final couplet reframes the entire exploration with a personal revelation. The beloved emerges as the source, destination, and unifying force behind all of the poet’s artistic pursuits, even during the years before he knew of her existence. Through this revelation, the transformative emotional and imaginative experience of the relationship collapses linear causality, retroactively casting his life’s work as a devotion to, and inspiration drawn from her, as if she were an eternal, timeless presence shaping his imagination long before she appeared to him in the flesh.

***********
Lyrics

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.

***********

Internet Archive
Book of sonnets:
https://archive.org/details/tome-of-stars/

Music:
Item 1, Anthesis: https://archive.org/details/Anthesis/
Item 2, Senescence: https://archive.org/details/senescence_tomeofstars
Item 3, Sporogenesis: https://archive.org/details/Sporogenesis_TomeOfStars/
Item 4, Anemochory: https://archive.org/details/Anemochory_TomeOfStars
Item 5, Quixotosis: https://archive.org/details/Quixotosis_TomeOfStars
Item 6, Scripture: https://archive.org/details/Scripture_TomeOfStars

Bandcamp:

Item 1, Anthesis: https://stargazer-elentirmo.bandcamp.com/album/anthesis-item-1-of-tome-of-stars
Item 2, Senescence: https://stargazer-elentirmo.bandcamp.com/album/senescence-item-2-of-tome-of-stars
Item 3, Sporogenesis: https://stargazer-elentirmo.bandcamp.com/album/sporogenesis-item-3-of-tome-of-stars
Item 4, Anemochory: https://stargazer-elentirmo.bandcamp.com/album/anemochory-item-4-of-tome-of-stars
Item 5, Quixotosis: https://stargazer-elentirmo.bandcamp.com/album/quixotosis-item-5-of-tome-of-stars
Item 6, Scripture: https://stargazer-elentirmo.bandcamp.com/album/scripture-item-6-of-tome-of-stars

Muse

“Tome of Stars” is a 100 sonnet journey, equal parts art, therapy journal, and exorcism, both a celebration and an elegy, a single narrative arc tracing the birth and death of a relationship. All poetry by Stargazer. The verse and accompanying synthetic art and music are public domain, CC0, with no restrictions on use. Nothing is monetized. See below for links on how to access the print, PDF, audio, ePub, video, and music files. Website: tomeofstars.net

The opening section of “Tome of Stars”, titled “Item 1: Anthesis”, comprises 21 poems that chronicle the emergence and flowering of a romantic relationship, structured around the botanical metaphor of anthesis, the period during which a flower blooms. 

“Storydancer” reflects on the beloved’s nearly transcendent gift for storytelling, particularly her ability to animate mythic and religious traditions from her Hindu heritage. The poem celebrates this narrative talent not only as oral recitation but as a transformative act of performance, blending language, gesture, expression, and ultimately dance to embody the tales she told. Tracing a progression from voice to movement, the sonnet portrays her as a singular vessel of cultural memory and spiritual artistry. Though the tone throughout is celebratory, the final couplet turns inward, settling into a quiet recollection of personal loss and highlighting the intimate privilege the poet once held in being her audience.

***********
Lyrics

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.

***********

Internet Archive
Book of sonnets:
https://archive.org/details/tome-of-stars/

Music:
Item 1, Anthesis: https://archive.org/details/Anthesis/
Item 2, Senescence: https://archive.org/details/senescence_tomeofstars
Item 3, Sporogenesis: https://archive.org/details/Sporogenesis_TomeOfStars/
Item 4, Anemochory: https://archive.org/details/Anemochory_TomeOfStars
Item 5, Quixotosis: https://archive.org/details/Quixotosis_TomeOfStars
Item 6, Scripture: https://archive.org/details/Scripture_TomeOfStars

Bandcamp:

Item 1, Anthesis: https://stargazer-elentirmo.bandcamp.com/album/anthesis-item-1-of-tome-of-stars
Item 2, Senescence: https://stargazer-elentirmo.bandcamp.com/album/senescence-item-2-of-tome-of-stars
Item 3, Sporogenesis: https://stargazer-elentirmo.bandcamp.com/album/sporogenesis-item-3-of-tome-of-stars
Item 4, Anemochory: https://stargazer-elentirmo.bandcamp.com/album/anemochory-item-4-of-tome-of-stars
Item 5, Quixotosis: https://stargazer-elentirmo.bandcamp.com/album/quixotosis-item-5-of-tome-of-stars
Item 6, Scripture: https://stargazer-elentirmo.bandcamp.com/album/scripture-item-6-of-tome-of-stars

Storydancer

“Tome of Stars” is a 100 sonnet journey, equal parts art, therapy journal, and exorcism, both a celebration and an elegy, a single narrative arc tracing the birth and death of a relationship. All poetry by Stargazer. The verse and accompanying synthetic art and music are public domain, CC0, with no restrictions on use. Nothing is monetized. See below for links on how to access the print, PDF, audio, ePub, video, and music files. Website: tomeofstars.net

The opening section of “Tome of Stars”, titled “Item 1: Anthesis”, comprises 21 poems that chronicle the emergence and flowering of a romantic relationship, structured around the botanical metaphor of anthesis, the period during which a flower blooms. 

“Shabdam” draws inspiration from the classical Indian dance item of the same name and explores the transformation of performance into personal revelation. It mirrors the structure of a shabdam, a key item in the Bharatanatyam repertoire that blends rhythm and melody with an introduction of narrative and expressive elements. Positioned within the traditional sequence as a bridge between the abstract purity of nritta and the emotive storytelling of abhinaya, the shabdam marks a shift in the performance. Likewise, the poem begins with abstract musical and rhythmic beauty, gradually shifting into emotive storytelling, culminating in a moment where the dancer’s performance becomes an expression of romantic love. The imagery moves from cosmic to personal, from mythic to intimate, using Bharatanatyam as both subject and metaphor.

***********
Lyrics

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.

***********

Internet Archive
Book of sonnets:
https://archive.org/details/tome-of-stars/

Music:
Item 1, Anthesis: https://archive.org/details/Anthesis/
Item 2, Senescence: https://archive.org/details/senescence_tomeofstars
Item 3, Sporogenesis: https://archive.org/details/Sporogenesis_TomeOfStars/
Item 4, Anemochory: https://archive.org/details/Anemochory_TomeOfStars
Item 5, Quixotosis: https://archive.org/details/Quixotosis_TomeOfStars
Item 6, Scripture: https://archive.org/details/Scripture_TomeOfStars

Bandcamp:

Item 1, Anthesis: https://stargazer-elentirmo.bandcamp.com/album/anthesis-item-1-of-tome-of-stars
Item 2, Senescence: https://stargazer-elentirmo.bandcamp.com/album/senescence-item-2-of-tome-of-stars
Item 3, Sporogenesis: https://stargazer-elentirmo.bandcamp.com/album/sporogenesis-item-3-of-tome-of-stars
Item 4, Anemochory: https://stargazer-elentirmo.bandcamp.com/album/anemochory-item-4-of-tome-of-stars
Item 5, Quixotosis: https://stargazer-elentirmo.bandcamp.com/album/quixotosis-item-5-of-tome-of-stars
Item 6, Scripture: https://stargazer-elentirmo.bandcamp.com/album/scripture-item-6-of-tome-of-stars

Shabdam

“Tome of Stars” is a 100 sonnet journey, equal parts art, therapy journal, and exorcism, both a celebration and an elegy, a single narrative arc tracing the birth and death of a relationship. All poetry by Stargazer. The verse and accompanying synthetic art and music are public domain, CC0, with no restrictions on use. Nothing is monetized. See below for links on how to access the print, PDF, audio, ePub, video, and music files. Website: tomeofstars.net

The opening section of “Tome of Stars”, titled “Item 1: Anthesis”, comprises 21 poems that chronicle the emergence and flowering of a romantic relationship, structured around the botanical metaphor of anthesis, the period during which a flower blooms. 

The title “Elentári” is drawn from J.R.R. Tolkien’s legendarium, where it is the Quenya name for Varda, meaning “Queen of the Stars”, one of the most exalted of the Valar. In that mythology, Varda is responsible for shaping the constellations and is revered by the Elves. The name carries deeply personal weight for the poet. It is etched into a ring he carries and represents the most complete symbolic manifestation of his beloved’s impact on his psyche. The title is emblematic of a private, intense, and eccentric reverence. It also continues the collection’s engagement with myth as a means of articulating emotional truth, particularly where language and memory otherwise fail. “Elentári” presents the beloved as a mythopoetic and cosmogenic force, an embodiment of divine feminine power whose influence permeates the poet’s imagination and cosmology.

***********
Lyrics

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.

***********

Internet Archive
Book of sonnets:
https://archive.org/details/tome-of-stars/

Music:
Item 1, Anthesis: https://archive.org/details/Anthesis/
Item 2, Senescence: https://archive.org/details/senescence_tomeofstars
Item 3, Sporogenesis: https://archive.org/details/Sporogenesis_TomeOfStars/
Item 4, Anemochory: https://archive.org/details/Anemochory_TomeOfStars
Item 5, Quixotosis: https://archive.org/details/Quixotosis_TomeOfStars
Item 6, Scripture: https://archive.org/details/Scripture_TomeOfStars

Bandcamp:

Item 1, Anthesis: https://stargazer-elentirmo.bandcamp.com/album/anthesis-item-1-of-tome-of-stars
Item 2, Senescence: https://stargazer-elentirmo.bandcamp.com/album/senescence-item-2-of-tome-of-stars
Item 3, Sporogenesis: https://stargazer-elentirmo.bandcamp.com/album/sporogenesis-item-3-of-tome-of-stars
Item 4, Anemochory: https://stargazer-elentirmo.bandcamp.com/album/anemochory-item-4-of-tome-of-stars
Item 5, Quixotosis: https://stargazer-elentirmo.bandcamp.com/album/quixotosis-item-5-of-tome-of-stars
Item 6, Scripture: https://stargazer-elentirmo.bandcamp.com/album/scripture-item-6-of-tome-of-stars

Elentári

“Tome of Stars” is a 100 sonnet journey, equal parts art, therapy journal, and exorcism, both a celebration and an elegy, a single narrative arc tracing the birth and death of a relationship. All poetry by Stargazer. The verse and accompanying synthetic art and music are public domain, CC0, with no restrictions on use. Nothing is monetized. See below for links on how to access the print, PDF, audio, ePub, video, and music files. 
Website: https://www.tomeofstars.net/

The final section of “Tome of Stars”, “Scripture”, leaves narrative behind to consecrate the poet’s enduring, unrequited love as sacred text. Comprising nine sonnets, it transforms the terminal condition of quixotosis (a delusional devotion stripped of belief in reciprocity) into liturgy, adopting the voice and cadence of timeless religious writing.

Adapted largely from an earlier prose work written from the perspective of a devotee of the Stargirl, these poems elevate her from mortal beloved to astral deity, blending hymn, confession, and myth in a tradition of sanctifying suffering and idealizing beauty. “Scripture” offers no reconstruction, resurrection, or resolution, only the permanence of ritualized longing: words repeated, a mantra, because they are all that remain.

“Mantra” is a reorientation from “Withdrawal”, a rejection of the negations in “Misapprehension”, where the devotee of the Stargirl takes the broken shards from the last poem and raises them up as transformative, if imperfect, revelation. The sonnet describes the poet’s act of offering shattered and poorly retained fragments of universal wisdom and creativity obtained from encountering the divine, urging the reader to unlock their inner potential by using these words to bridge the divide between the mortal and immortal. The beloved is portrayed as Creation’s Queen, a celestial figure who guides and inspires, unfurling possibilities in the mind and soul. Through metaphors of drought and renewal, the poem emphasizes the healing and life-giving power of words, imagination, and prayer, all within the context of the imperfect retention and understanding of mortals when encountering the divine. It stands in opposition to the earlier poems that lament the limitations and futility of human perception and artistic expression of transcendent truths.

***********
Lyrics

Receive my masticated shards of Time,
Distorted echoes, cast to astral seas.
Consume rich remnants of her Cosmic Rhyme;
Each drowns in dance from distant galaxies.

Unlock the cavern hidden in your soul,
Where inspiration gestates endless worlds.
She waits beyond the silent shadows, bold—
Creation’s Queen, bright nakshatra unfurled.

Charged words will pulse within your famished frame,
Transforming desert drought to flowing streams.
Sweet lyrics fill your void and mend the lame,
Awakening our dormant hopes and dreams.

These windswept whispers whirl your night to day,
And feed you life with every word you pray.

***********

Internet Archive
Book of sonnets:
https://archive.org/details/tome-of-stars/

Music:
Item 1, Anthesis: https://archive.org/details/Anthesis/
Item 2, Senescence: https://archive.org/details/senescence_tomeofstars
Item 3, Sporogenesis: https://archive.org/details/Sporogenesis_TomeOfStars/
Item 4, Anemochory: https://archive.org/details/Anemochory_TomeOfStars
Item 5, Quixotosis: https://archive.org/details/Quixotosis_TomeOfStars
Item 6, Scripture: https://archive.org/details/Scripture_TomeOfStars

Mantra

“Tome of Stars” is a 100 sonnet journey, equal parts art, therapy journal, and exorcism, both a celebration and an elegy, a single narrative arc tracing the birth and death of a relationship. All poetry by Stargazer. The verse and accompanying synthetic art and music are public domain, CC0, with no restrictions on use. Nothing is monetized. See below for links on how to access the print, PDF, audio, ePub, video, and music files. 
Website: https://www.tomeofstars.net/

The fifth Item of “Tome of Stars”, “Quixotosis”, marks the poet’s transformation into a sustained state of paradox with an enduring condition of impractical idealism born not from naive delusion but from its aftermath. Emerging from the frozen void of “Anemochory“, these sixteen poems depict a fractured self that has ceased resisting its nature, accepting permanent separation from the beloved while continuing to orbit her in love without expectation (and in the end, without hope) of return.

This sonnet narrates an intimate and painful moment in which the poet, now long-estranged from his beloved, learns she will perform a classical dance near a friend of his. Prevented in the past to witness her dance in person, and now forbidden by circumstance and history, he implores this lifelong friend to attend in his stead. The poem becomes an act of devotional displacement: unable to directly experience the moment, the poet seeks a form of presence through proxy, asking his friend to see her through the lens of reverence and love the poet himself still holds.

***********
Lyrics

In oft-failed quests online, I track your trace,  
As hateful time rends weavings of our lives.  
One dawn told you’d perform in distant grace,  
In East Coast towns; your margam’d come alive.

A friend of forty autumns, lore imparts
Within the school your splendor would imbue.
Cruel is my trial; I’ve never seen your art,
Denied your dance that once I helped renew.

I whispered thus to him a broken plea:  
“Revere her steps, for I’m outcast afar.
Adore her glory, share its light with me,  
That I might glimpse her like a distant star.”

A beggar dare not question what’s bestowed;
He only weeps at joy and laughs with woe.

***********

Internet Archive
Book of sonnets:
https://archive.org/details/tome-of-stars/

Music:
Item 1, Anthesis: https://archive.org/details/Anthesis/
Item 2, Senescence: https://archive.org/details/senescence_tomeofstars
Item 3, Sporogenesis: https://archive.org/details/Sporogenesis_TomeOfStars/
Item 4, Anemochory: https://archive.org/details/Anemochory_TomeOfStars
Item 5, Quixotosis: https://archive.org/details/Quixotosis_TomeOfStars
Item 6, Scripture: https://archive.org/details/Scripture_TomeOfStars

Bandcamp:

Item 1, Anthesis: https://stargazer-elentirmo.bandcamp.com/album/anthesis-item-1-of-tome-of-stars
Item 2, Senescence: https://stargazer-elentirmo.bandcamp.com/album/senescence-item-2-of-tome-of-stars
Item 3, Sporogenesis: https://stargazer-elentirmo.bandcamp.com/album/sporogenesis-item-3-of-tome-of-stars
Item 4, Anemochory: https://stargazer-elentirmo.bandcamp.com/album/anemochory-item-4-of-tome-of-stars
Item 5, Quixotosis: https://stargazer-elentirmo.bandcamp.com/album/quixotosis-item-5-of-tome-of-stars
Item 6, Scripture: https://stargazer-elentirmo.bandcamp.com/album/scripture-item-6-of-tome-of-stars

Vicarious

“Tome of Stars” is a 100 sonnet journey, equal parts art, therapy journal, and exorcism, both a celebration and an elegy, a single narrative arc tracing the birth and death of a relationship. All poetry by Stargazer. The verse and accompanying synthetic art and music are public domain, CC0, with no restrictions on use. Nothing is monetized. See below for links on how to access the print, PDF, audio, ePub, video, and music files. 
Website: https://www.tomeofstars.net/

The fifth Item of “Tome of Stars”, “Quixotosis”, marks the poet’s transformation into a sustained state of paradox with an enduring condition of impractical idealism born not from naive delusion but from its aftermath. Emerging from the frozen void of “Anemochory“, these sixteen poems depict a fractured self that has ceased resisting its nature, accepting permanent separation from the beloved while continuing to orbit her in love without expectation (and in the end, without hope) of return.

This sonnet captures the daily, immersive practice of living in a fantasy: the poet conjures the beloved in memory, imagination, or dream to the extent that the simulation blurs with reality. It is a voluntary delusion, and acknowledged as such, but one that provides solace, routine, and identity. Through imagined rituals of affection and dialogue, the poet constructs a phantom life that feels safer and more meaningful (less agonizing) than the bereft truth. Yet he also admits the danger of this refuge: in the final couplet, he acknowledges being caught in a cycle of desire and illusion, embracing a “visioned vice” that is impermanent. The poem is not a lamentation. Instead it is a sober chronicle of a deeply pathological yet stabilizing state of being.

The word “simulacrum” is a significant choice for the title. It originates from Latin, meaning “likeness” or “image,” and in modern philosophical usage, it refers to a copy without an original, a representation that has replaced reality itself. 

In the work of French philosopher Jean Baudrillard, particularly “Simulacra and Simulation” (1981), the term indicates a representation that no longer refers to any real object or origin but instead becomes its own reality. Baudrillard argues that in postmodern culture, these simulacra proliferate to the point where the distinction between reality and representation collapses, leaving us with hyperreality: a world of signs that simulate meaning and experience without grounding in any actual referent.

The title signals the artificiality of the beloved’s presence in the speaker’s mind and frames the poem’s exploration of how emotional sustenance can come from illusions. The term carries philosophical and psychological import, reinforcing the poem’s themes of substitution, unreality, and psychological dependence.

***********
Lyrics

With magic-whispered words, we touch each day;  
I praise the splendors of sweet steps you place,
Lament the love we lost, our hearts betrayed,  
As pain dissolves with shadows I embrace.

Fair wraith, phantasm, haunting glimmer-ghost,
Time travel brings me back to perished years.
In each, we kiss that I might overdose,
And rewrite fate to unmake all our tears. 

Ten thousand conversations as I roam,
Recline to sleep, or wake, reflect in prayer,
Through them, we share a life—I’ve found my home.
At times, I near believe you’re standing there.

Yet in this visioned vice I lose my way,  
Clasp specters in bright dreams where none can stay.

***********

Internet Archive
Book of sonnets:
https://archive.org/details/tome-of-stars/

Music:
Item 1, Anthesis: https://archive.org/details/Anthesis/
Item 2, Senescence: https://archive.org/details/senescence_tomeofstars
Item 3, Sporogenesis: https://archive.org/details/Sporogenesis_TomeOfStars/
Item 4, Anemochory: https://archive.org/details/Anemochory_TomeOfStars
Item 5, Quixotosis: https://archive.org/details/Quixotosis_TomeOfStars
Item 6, Scripture: https://archive.org/details/Scripture_TomeOfStars

Once Upon a Time Part 4

Stargazer Elentirmo