If there is a God
and you are made
in her image …
then there is nothing
wrong with you.
You are a perfect
aspect of his light,
the infallible pitch
of her voice;
you are
the exact measure
and cut, made from
original stuff.
Don’t let any man
or mob of men,
any book or verse,
or anything disguised
as coming from god
tell you otherwise.
Copyright © henry toromoreno, 2020. All rights reserved
the greens and blues,
with mes and yous
these things are true …
the wheres, the whose,
the whats, left clues;
time can’t undo,
what’s laid, what grew.
the dusks, the dews,
the lights, the hues.
the sun, the moon,
with you seemed new.
the songs, the tunes,
the ocean’s bloom …
let’s both escape
on this balloon.
Copyright © henry toromoreno, 2014. All rights reserved.
for Gabriel, who is fourteen
.
Wrestling with you, nowadays,
both in spirit and in form,
reminds me how much you’ve grown.
When I brace myself,
my arms around you,
trying to hold you,
I can feel you breaking free.
I don’t know how much is me,
getting older and what is you,
growing stronger;
but it makes me think of Jacob
and the angel, in the end,
wishing the night could
be just an hour longer.
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.
hermano, amigo
I don’t gots nothing more
but words for you …
an open invitation
like the blanket I hung
as a door when we lived
side by side, all the places
where we were young together
.
even these things are leaving
us now,
that we don’t talk,
that you can’t call
to say “I love you too”
now that I’m just another
Facebook friend or bit I.M.
.
Te acuerdas,
remember how we met?
¿como todo paso?
.
how by accident your mother
bought the house across the street
from ours? How twelve years
earlier we had both surprised
our fathers and bent their tomorrows.
.
¿Que cosas, no?
.
that so much had to go,
had to break a certain way
to find us playing tag in
the summertime, dodging
between cars or playing kick the can
and waiting for the street lights
to turn on.
.
Te acuerdas como nos conocimos?
.
You doing your imitation of John
Travolta from Saturday Night Fever
and singing the Bee Gees’
“Staying Alive”
to mock whoever the hell was “it”
… except me …
we were already running as a team
.
Ploying silently to keep the
rest at bay, pushing to be better
than each other because no one
wanted to be Robin, because
we both felt absolutely golden,
whenever we were together,
you were Larry and I was Magic
even though our skin said
we had it backwards
… we knew better
.
Ya tu sabes!
.
So here’s a list that only
you will understand with your
decoder ring and secret index
of punchlines and memories
.
Pink Champale and Greased Lightning,
Lower Grant and their mutant bigs,
Hershey Park spinning on its side,
Reggie, the bleachers and spaghetti,
Willie on the train and the fucking fractions,
Missions to van Sicilen, Crescent or Norwood
The middle of winter and a rat’s nest,
Pitufas and soft shelled crabs,
The Dominican outback needing dancers,
Fernando in the ambulance,
Shoeless football, stir fry and home grown,
Seafood Mamajuanas, Billy Joel and
about a million other words I could
string together to hang around our necks
like totems signifying we know
exactly what they meant.
.
But we don’t.
.
We have our own stories, no?
Even if we shared that
glory time so long ago, all things
can gather enough dust
to be covered in the end.
.
Te acuerdo, te amo, te extraño.
.
Copyright © henry toromoreno, 2011. All rights reserved.
es lo que es
las noticias de la vida
todo cambia pero
quedan las heridas
y yo que fui
tan perdido por aquí
me encontraré
la paz sin ser
cometido ha mentiras
.
(musical interlude … lots of horns)
.
Y es lo que es
la vida por noticias
nada cambia pero
quedan injusticias
y yo que fui
educado por aquí
me encontraré
razon sin ser
cometido ha malicias
.
(repeat music … end with horns and cymbals)
.
* dijo el angel caído
Copyright © henry toromoreno, 2011. All rights reserved.
So, I’m not good enough?
I don’t match up?
I know it’s the superheroes
that you love so much.
They’re such tough hombres,
even though you say
it’s not the muscles but
the strut;
the way they command a room
when they enter,
the quick reflexes
the poise in dangerous situations
how they give as good as they get
the way they defend your honor
and good name
in their tight rayon/ lycra blend suits
with their superhero signs
emblazoned on their chests.
But what of me?
I’m the one with a real job.
The sensitive male
friend who happens
to be a good listener.
Who awakens early
to shower and shave
to stand & pay
for an overpriced latte
never late to a meeting or a date –
that makes me invisible?
(wouldn’t just one superpower be great?)
So what if I get nervous
in front of cute girls like you
that’s no reason to ignore me.
I’ve got excellent qualities –
I won’t wait ‘til the last moment to take action,
I won’t disappear when you turn to thank me,
I won’t wear the same outfit to various functions,
I won’t hide behind a mask or cape,
Or lead a secret double life
where loving you is less important than saving the day.
.
Copyright © henry toromoreno, 2010. 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.
“All I wanted”,
she says licking tears
that taste like the spray
of a tropical storm,
“was for him to love me”.
.
Hiccuping breaths,
she lowers her eyes
to keep from sailing
back to her memories;
but her swollen lids
press into her face –
and remind her of his hands …
so she cries some more.
.
“I know”,
she says,
“he loved me,
but he had to break me too”,
and that was the wave
that washed her up on my shores.
.
Copyright © henry toromoreno, 2010. All rights reserved.
words with no names 