Bibliotherapeutic Saudade

the books stand linear—a syzygy in the redux etagere
the mellow beige sun halved by peach clouds, peeks at them
peanut-like scent dissolved into that of the wall-paint oozes
from the books in stagnation of the moment
my eyes wander as a vagrant searching for a space to dwell
in your dreams—I shelter my eyes under the awning of your smiles
my fancy strewn by fairy dust and reveries strolls in
the orchards of the past, the time my vespertine walks with dad
to the bookstores in search of a literary jewel to adorn our
bookracks in attempt to express our ineffable bibliophilia
he would exhort me, ‘literature mirrors life,’ handing me
Shakespeare’s Hamlet that vellichor drove him to buy
I would match the color of my nail enamel and clothes
to that of the cover of the book I’d read, dad and I
would discuss new words we’d learn, he’d familiarize me
with unique Punjabi words, we would discuss acclaimed writers
while we’d be in the car en route to my university
the raindrops would glimmer like stars on the windshield
now I sit by the tea-colored bookrack, and recall the days
he’d shower it with his love, now the scent of these old books
these chamois pages look like a faraway desert to me
now I see in the ripples in my eyes the moments
when I’d tell my friends that my dad loves to spend extravagantly
on books, he’d say these books will bless you in ways unfathomable
so never hesitate when you pay a little too much for books
now my fingers slither on the spine of Silas Marner
as I glide from one instant to another I spent with dad
it feels like I’m soaring through the undulating Aurora Borealis
it feels like I’m watching a reel of the days I’ve spent in bliss
it feels like I’m reading a fumetto from a comic that my hippocampus wrote

Duende of a Sylvan Art

I shrivel like the wrinkled skin—my antiquity is a monument
curling my edges into myself, I’m a star that collapses on itself,
vulnerably thin as a mild film of surf on a beach
majestic as my shade darkens, artistic as I knock the ground supine,
when prostrate I’m a macabre-figure for I evoke morbidity
I let the twig go of my hand as I whirl in circles when breeze-kissed
I float, I prance, I dance in a trance, & tap the autumned earth
I spark flames of a peculiar solemnity in the poetic hearts
becoming the voice of the silence, I speak in images
I rustle and become a favorite disturbance in quietude.
the brown pigmentation, the pores with sunshine passing through
twinkle as the luminescent piercings in the ebony nocturnal sheet.
gold hair contour my edge that canopy the shadow
in my hollow face is a lifeless dry sea—desert-like venules
my translucent anatomy radiates cerise when I bask in the sun,
placid fingers of brushwood splinter me amorphous
as crushed flowers become aroma, I crisp into a rhythm when broken