Maid in Hollywood

para Lupe Ontiveros

 

Now that she is a vieja

with dyed blonde hair

and not a threat to any gringa’s

beauty when she steps into

the frame of someone else’s fame,

you get to know her nombre, hombre.

 

Lupe Ontiveros

does not roll off your tongue

and she paints no picture

in your mind because

you never knew she

was acting like a star.

You never went to a matinee

looking for her name

or waiting for Lupe to say,

the only lines she always had,

after knocking on the door

and peeking in, “Excuse me,

senior, do you need room service?”

 

She was a minority detail

in the mise en scene of

the movies we all went to see.

While the stars of film and life

carried on in the foreground

of our attention, in soft light and

perfect make up, with witty

lines and music for the moment,

Lupe was in the background, like us.

 

But she had a master key

to Hollywood, a back door entrance

that service people used to bring in

the catered lunches and distilled agua;

and when no one was looking,

she was letting otros enter,

making room for dreamers named

Lopez, Alba, Rodriguez, Dawson,

del Toro, Hayek, Mendes,

y para ti tambien.

 

Copyright © henry toromoreno, 2009. All rights reserved

gossip

these blushing times we share

in small words set out as picnic items

made to taste of cinnamon and sea breeze

parceled into glazed paper

scented with fruit zest

filled with names we barely

know any better than

a recipe for making cheese,

leaves behind an aftertaste,

like crushed almonds and

snowflakes on our tongues.

Copyright © henry toromoreno, 2009. All rights reserved

Noah’s banana boat for alphabet animals

Guest artist, Alexander Raphael Toromoreno’s, “Noah’s banana boat for alphabet animals” … see how many letters and animals you can find.  Here’s a hint, there’s a cow and a pig, sinking in the ocean.

Copyright © henry toromoreno, 2009. All rights reserved

Sometimes it’s all blue

not baby blue,

soft and comforting

as the breadth of sky

that breaks at the horizon …

or a cornflower blue

cotton short sleeved shirt

that fit right around the shoulders

the summer you started getting looks …

but true blue.

melting towards the darkness,

rushing for the edges

of the rainbow

and messing with

the indigos of mourning …

the kind of blue

with heavy names like

Duke, Prussian, Navy

and Midnight that

cover other colors

with their spectrum …

the blue in your bruises,

that fade into jaundiced

patches and the blue

that creeps into dead lips

kissing the world goodbye.

 

Copyright © henry toromoreno, 2009. All rights reserved

The penalty for eating pomegranate seeds

I approach a day of raking

like I have arrived at a crime scene,

finding evidence that Persephone’s

white arms were dragged by;

her nails digging into the earth

as she clawed against being pulled

into the early darkness, the shorter days –

she scratched October’s face until he bled

the colors of a parade, and left a cryptic

message in the curled leaves on my lawn.

From the center of the world

she paints this picture of the fires

all around her; a portrait that breaks

in the wind and that I collect into piles.

Looking at the bursting colors

still clinging to the branches is

just a reminder that she’s been taken.

A sick ransom note from her captor,

like a naked picture of her outline

at the beach while

her curves eat half the sun.

 

Copyright © henry toromoreno, 2009. All rights reserved

 

In science news …

While working on a cartoon for this blog about an HIV “vaccine” I felt a little déjà vu — like I had drawn something like this long ago. Digging through some old folders (this is why it’s good to keep journals, diaries and notebooks) I discovered a little cartoon that I had done in high school, and that was actually printed in a 1985 Brooklyn Tech HS newspaper. Here is my new cartoon:

and here is the cartoon I drew in 1985.

I guess some things never change. Like cruel religious dogmas.

Copyright © henry toromoreno, 2009. All rights reserved

Ending a conversation about opposites

 It begins shortly after I serve my two boys

a plate of white cookies and some chocolate milk,

while I’m dipping my burnt whole wheat crackers

 

(the English call Melba toast and sell to us suckers)

 

into chick peas I could have squashed myself,

 

(but purchased as hummus instead)

 

when the questions appear about opposites,

but quickly become infected with laughter

 

(in between chewing and kicking each other)

 

they spill silly pairs of the commonest things

and finally break all the rules of the logic

that makes any sense of the meaning of opposites

 

(Think of a bar room late in a shift)

 

when one of them questions that since it’s

okay to say you’re comparing apples

and oranges like they are unlike, then

surely there must be an opposite for ears?

 

Mouth I say, and tell them to finish their snack.

 

Copyright © henry toromoreno, 2009. All rights reserved

a meme

 

 

Copyright © henry toromoreno, 2009. All rights reserved.

DN_Angels

I imagine this is what the creation workshop must have looked like.

Copyright © henry toromoreno, 2009. All rights reserved.

Sermon for the godless

I sleep late with my certainty

on Sunday morning, letting the

day break the spell of darkness

like it always has;  subtly at first

and then revealing the full

nature of our spinning.

I have learned to keep

the necessary things that prove

their place in the universe;

that show their accidental

designs in their morbid

architecture – free of ghosts,

or gods breaking laws

of the reality I am forced

to live and learn of.

Magic insults my mind,

my heart, the coffee in my cup,

the steam that makes its

presence known in sunlight.

I have no use for lines

and lies and lore

written in the darkness

of our early fears,

luring us from learning

done against the liturgy

that strives to steal the

wonder woven from letters

and numbers unwilling to bow

or break before superstition.

I believe in the seasons of the year

and the stretch of a day;

the length of shadows

extending further and becoming

less descriptive of their casters.

My garden has taught me

everything I need to know

of caring and kindness.

My aging face reminds me

I am just a metaphor

and that I must rest,

for I have worked all week

proving gravity and love.

 

Copyright © henry toromoreno, 2009. All rights reserved.