Nothing new to post, as the holidays take over my life. I would like to thank everyone that stops, stopped or will stop by, for sharing a moment of their internet life with me.

This year marks my second anniversary posting to this blog, and I don’t know how much longer I will (or can) continue posting regularly. More than anything, it has been great getting so much feedback from so many people, and if I do stop psoting, that’s what I will most the most.

My sincerest best wishes to everyone during this season of festivities and holy days, and may the new year bring us good health, better understanding and more art to fill the world.

Cheers.

Henry

 for the HHS Young Men’s Group, 2009

.

I know you already been drafted

elsewhere,

that you been called to duty

by other armies of the imagination.

I see your uniforms –

skinny jeans below your ass

revealing brand name elastics,

and pretending a connection

to prison cell stories,

where young boys like you

become beautiful concubines

to be traded amongst older men

with truer tales of horror

and nothing left outside the walls

that keep them until death.

I know. They came for me once too.

.

I know that you been sold

a dream of how to be a man

holding your hands

balled and ready to blast,

that you’ve been promised

a connection to the past

and a key to greater pastures,

because I can read

your feathers and spots,

I know the whys and whats

of your beads and ways and tats

the bandanas that you fly

to mark a space,

the hoods you wear

to hide your face,

colors that will grace

your resting place.

I know. They came for me once too.

.

They came for me, but I escaped,

and I escaped, only to warn you.

.

Copyright © henry toromoreno, 2009. All rights reserved.

a poem for the cavemen

Sticks and branches were not enough,

     the big cats and other beasts 

had learned the bluff;

other groups had big sticks, too.

And in their natural state,

     rocks just would not do.

Then like magic,

           the flint breaks away

     and with it some of the darkness

          and the fear.

There was an edge now to our being,

     like new found claws or tiger jaws,

     weapons we learned to hold dear.

From then on rock pounded rock, 

     with a purpose and a plan.

Art was born and moved us along;

     thoughts turned inward now

the birth of man.

The search for god, meaning and a plan.

From the flint was born,

     the bulls at Lascaux, a father for fire,

dreams of angels, fat  man and little boy.

Copyright © henry toromoreno, 2009. All rights reserved

Guest artist, Leonel Toromoreno. Oil on canvas.

Self portrait my uncle Leonel painted maybe 30 years ago, while under the influence of Picasso’s “blue period”. I’ve always liked this painting, and treasure it now even more, because it reminds me of my own son, Gabriel.

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

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

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

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

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

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