No hay mal que dure cien anos
me decia mi mama
Ni cuerpo que lo sostenga
todo tiene que acabar
Pero hijo no te rindas,
lo que sufres, va pasar.
Siempre carga tu cancion
como arma, pa’ amar.
* Translation
There is no evil/ wrong that lasts a hundred years
my mom used to tell me
Nor a body to withstand it
everything has an end
But son, don’t give up,
what you suffer will happen/ pass.
Always load/ carry your song
As a weapon, to love.
Copyright © henry toromoreno, 2020. All rights reserved
we are all Sisyphus
with our own boulders
.
you my love
are Sisyphus as mother
as teacher
as humbled crumbled
daughter …
.
rolling your bones
like a lover
longing for a cliff
.
when we are lost
or tired, you know …
.
there are times we
must stop to rest
when we let the rock go
hurling along and we
bend low to wash
.
to bow our heads
for a moment
.
to take measure
of our course and recall
that we have been
here before
.
but everything is different
it is not the same river now
the land has changed
we are tired
in different places
having seen things
from the valleys
having stood at times
near the top
..
our rest is
sometimes broken
when the rock
comes
rolling
back.
.
Copyright © henry toromoreno, 2011. All rights reserved.
for KBT (and you know who you be)
.
You’re not too sure at all / / anymore
if there are angels / / or an afterlife worth dying for
you’ve crucified / / the yesterdays of your life
by chasing fantasies/ / and choosing to trade for a lie.
It wasn’t destiny / / the ways you chose
\ \ to break and be
the road you found / / to walk away
/ / from your memories.
And though \ \ no one knows
/ / how many holes
\ \ your heart may hold
it isn’t fair / / to take those you promised to protect
/ / in some misdirected step
with you. \ \
.
Copyright © henry toromoreno, 2010. All rights reserved.
just as the water
dances up to the land
to form a coast
and the way
the sky and earth
pretend to meet
at the horizon –
every love
has its own geography.
.
a landscape mapped across months
outlining open fields
that stay in full bloom
where laughter calls out
from the crown canopy
shading the brambled edges
that are meant to be wild
and forgotten …
.
these borders,
the imaginary lines
that mark the province,
are boundaries
that shrink and expand
with the love.
.
a territory always in flux –
a country threatened by coup
and surrounded by dragons.
.
* Latin for “here are monsters” … a phrase supposedly found on old maps marking unknown or dangerous places
.
Copyright © henry toromoreno, 2010. All rights reserved.
When I ask you for your number
you joke and say it’s infinity.
I ask how I’m supposed
to dial that and you tell me
that you can’t be reached.
I laugh to check your
legs out and read what
everything else is saying.
You smile at me and I forget
the rules of what we’re playing.
Copyright © henry toromoreno, 2009. All rights reserved.
para mi abuelita Olga, que en paz descanze
She’s standing in the room alone
surrounded by possessions that own
her name,
and she’s wondering aloud
what the rain felt like
a hundred years ago
and a thousand loves away.
When it takes her by surprise;
a memory of being young
and drowning in the laughter
of a game.
And it’s impeccable, this moment
how her imperfections carry her away.
She’s lost her troubles,
become unburdened,
forgets the days her tears
used to salt her grace.
Looking straight ahead
she laments
“I don’t know what’s
worth remembering anymore.
I don’t know why I stored
any of these thoughts.
What are they good for?
What could I have done –
to make things different?
to be the hero?
to take possession of my dreams?
What should I have known
to have an answer
for loneliness and sorrow
to cast away tomorrow knowing
yesterday should be enough –
it should fill me up and let me be complete.”
Copyright © henry toromoreno, 2009. All rights reserved.
I found a note
reminding myself
to pick up jalapeños,
cilantro and lemons
to make picante sauce
for one of your
family’s parties.
It was written
on the back
of a torn out page
from a book of poetry
that you gave me for
Valentine’s Day our
first year of dating.
I already had the book.
I kept the page
You wrote.
I recycled the page
and the picante was delicious.
This proves that poetry
is a renewable energy.
Copyright © henry toromoreno, 2009. All rights reserved.
And the LORD God said, Behold, the man
is become as one of us, to know good and evil:
and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take
also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:
All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree.
Once stupidity
has been rounded to
a trillionth digit,
as we get closer
to knowing
peering deeper into
with our frail and feeble minds;
when the slight details that seemed
like rolling dice to Einstein
don’t have a place left to hide,
there will be born
from science and curiosity,
out of true love
for waking to the world,
baptized as the gift of fantasy –
a mathematical
equation that means
in every language,
“A table, a chair,
a bowl of fruit
and a violin“.
Copyright © henry toromoreno, 2009. All rights reserved.
words with no names 