Lately,
I’ve been coming loose;
untethered.
Spiraling from my orbit,
and heading out
into forever.
How can this be,
. I wonder?
That there
will come an instant
clapping me asunder.
And I will be no more …
Unwhole.
Everything that made me
will remain
But I
I will never be the same.
Copyright © henry toromoreno, 2019. All rights reserved
On one of the days
of that week of creation
(the sources aren’t sure
if it was the 3rd or the 6th)
the angels were told
to bow down before Adam
for man was God’s favorite
invention; made as he was
in his own image
from the mist and the mud …
how could this tiny
material thing, be greater
than those who’d known only
Heaven?
And this is when
the angels conspired to whisper
forever into the ears of men,
lies about the nature of nature
and the terrible predicament
that we are all in.
Copyright © henry toromoreno, 2018. All rights reserved
I don’t like finding the dead bodies of insects
anywhere ‘round my house.
Don’t get me wrong, I smash and swat and kill
the little buggers when they trespass on my space.
They are disgusting after all, and especially to me;
when I consider how alien they seem,
but still share my ancestry.
How I hate thinking that they still foment
within their genetic recipe
the blueprints for my symmetry.
No, my distaste for finding the leftover husks
of dried out insects comes from the deep
realization that I share that fate with them.
That their grotesque beauty should be
so fragile in the end, and so easily extinguished,
left without ceremony, to be collected in a dustpan.
Copyright © henry toromoreno, 2016. All rights reserved.
worse than learning
what it is
is realizing it’s the stuff
that’s getting in the way
of actually being
in the world
completely,
and worst of all
is knowing
that it’s mostly
empty space
repelling through
its charges
our merging
into everything.
Copyright © henry toromoreno, 2012. All rights reserved.
… and I said send me a message
or show me a sign
because my eyes are wide open
but I am feeling so blind
I understand all the reasons
and none of the rhyme
and I have changed with the seasons
to mine the sublime
and while I long for discovery
I’m growing shorter on time
I’m afraid all the answers
don’t get along in my mind
as the more that I learn
the less I can define
what you call angels and demons
good deeds and crimes.
Copyright © henry toromoreno, 2010. All rights reserved.
What the doctor says to me
in his soliloquy …
and in terms that are expressed
really best by his eyes
and the puffing of his chest
by the stance he finally
takes, breaking our distance
and the way he holds
his clipboard as a shield
against death; that’s
the way he says without a
breath, “this is serious”.
Copyright © henry toromoreno, 2010. All rights reserved.
There are shows nowadays
that let us ride along
safely from our homes
with the kind of people
who cast an imprint on the flat world
that you and I travel on.
.
My uncle, the sailor, for example,
who got a tattoo in the Navy
before they became crackerjack stickers
or cheap substitutes for personality
was one of those who marked the earth
with his work and left behind a hurt
now that he’s gone past horizons
we cannot yet get to;
.
and we are left at the pier, standing by an edge
measuring the air with everyone around
until we are met with what we can recall –
.
which are all the pieces of the world
he scraped off with his fingertips
and nails to bring home
and mix with the salt of our meals.
.
Copyright © henry toromoreno, 2010. All rights reserved.
Every day the light
comes up at the top
of the world
.
the churn goes on
grinding down
and pushing out
as well
.
everything is going
on as before
according to
the same laws —
.
the furthest star
is twice as far today
than one we’ll see
tonight
.
the only thing
that’s changed
are the subtle
combinations —
.
the queerest force
called chance by most
who fail to comprehend
.
the only mark we leave
in time is what we do
while living.
.
Copyright © henry toromoreno, 2010. All rights reserved.
I don’t like cleaning –
and not just for the obvious reasons
like taking away from
all the nothing else I might be doing
.
it’s because cleaning reminds me
of how awfully endless the simplest
nastiest tiniest specks of the universe
are falling forever and finally landing
all over everything I own
.
even me, I am falling apart, all over
my apartment, flaking away little bits
of my skin, leaving my oils and my
stink like my cousins who live in the jungles
traces of hair and my preference for beer
.
and cleaning can take on a strength
all its own and possess me for stretches
where I’m looking for hours behind doors
meant to cover all the clutter that’s gathered
and quietly planning to take over my home
.
worst of all, cleaning can lead me,
and does now more than before,
to collections that have had real time
to marinate in the taste of forgotten
.
pictures and letters and buttons and
faded ribbons pinned to nothing
boxes that might have meant something
were I Pepys or Strong
.
Copyright © henry toromoreno, 2010. All rights reserved.
Tonight, when the angels
come for me, I will fool them
into staying longer than expected.
I will give them wine
and tell them that it’s water
steal their wings when
their halos are misdirected.
It’s the only way
to get a good thing
from any angels sent to save you.
Because they know
nothing but the light
they think they live in,
angels don’t understand
what it means to
need forgiveness.
Copyright © henry toromoreno, 2010. All rights reserved.
words with no names 