Life is like MATH:
With quality friends, you ADD,
Enemies of success, you SUBTRACT,
Misfortunes you DIVIDE,
Through hard work, your success MULTIPLIES.
It is a trap, yet you can escape,
By putting pleasures in BRACKETS—
Saving the sweetest for tomorrow.
Of all things, trust in God,
Who grants the power
To bypass obstacles
And solve the equation of success.
The sun goes down, the storm begins to rise,A tidal wave behind my weary eyes.
The fear of being left, the splitting dark,
Each emotion leaving such a burning mark.
I grab the glass to numb the jagged edge,
To stop myself from walking off the ledge.
With every sip, the roaring silence breaks,
A temporary shield for my mistakes.
I drown the "too much," hide the frantic need,And plant the, "I am fine," synthetic seed.But when the fog lifts, the trauma remains,The same broken heart, the same heavy chains.The bottle promises a quiet night,But leaves me sinking, hidden from the light.Yet,
The hum grows louder —
a tension beneath the anthem,
a dissonance the flag can’t mute.
Faces blur
into sides,
into threats,
into strangers wearing familiar skin.
Words crack like ice —
too fragile to hold the heat
of truth anymore.
We breathe the same air,
but with suspicion,
as if trust itself
is contagious
and we forgot the cure.
Our shared ground
fractures beneath headlines,
fault lines widening
with every “us”
and every “them.”
Democracy trembles —
not from war,
but from neighbors
who no longer believe
the other deserves
a voice.
I fear
the quiet victories of division —
how silence sharpens into distance,
distance into dismissal,
dismissal into hate.
To be alone
in a crowded nation
is to feel the lights flicker
on the idea of “We the People,”
and wonder
how close we are
to darkness.
Did you see, did you see
Grampa said excitedly
The system works, it really works
Thank God, they’re not (yet) all jerks
Aw, Gramps, open your eyes, didn’t you see
All those folks forgoing salaries
Airline flights canceled left and right
Millions with nothing to eat at night
Yes, sonny boy, I saw, I saw
And the deal was a bit raw
But the system worked, it really worked!
Sorry, Gramps
You’ve gone blind ~ you old jerk!
The morning bell is silent now,
No rush upon the stair,
Just one bright screen upon the desk,
And silence in the air.
We log into the endless class,
A grid of muted faces,
A digital, two-dimensional world
In familiar places.
The clock hand spins, the work piles high,
The day is soft and slow,
It takes a different kind of will
To make the focus grow.
Self-discipline, a sudden test,
When couches call your name,
To manage time and find the fire,
To keep hold of the game.
But still, the signal falters fast,
The video breaks down,
A voice that chops, a message lost,
Throughout the busy town.
The Wi-Fi lags, the device freezes,
A barrier so great,
The Digital Divide appears,
Sealing a cruel fate.
We miss the shared and sudden laugh,
The quick chat by the door,
The little human energy
We never knew before.
A wall of glass, a lonely sound,
Where community should be,
We wait for when the world spins round,
And learning sets us free.
We choose to live
in different countries
Fortune
gives but one
Divided
at its very core
Two parties
zero-sum
The canyon widens
beyond our reach
Where each side
stands alone
The best of what
we all could be
In hopes and dreams
— below
(Dreamsleep: October, 2025)
Thinking about the future ,
never forgetting of my past;
has left certain scars on me,
and my mind in awe aghast....
Young love does not always work;
it can be very trying;
if I said anything other,
I'd simply be just lying....
Separated from children,
at a young and vulnerable age,
watching from a distance ;
just me a useless sage....
Much time has passed and here I sit;
broken hearted and alone,
even with my charm and wit,
I am chilled right to the bone....
The Left and Right today
Are like East and West,
Different worlds that never shall meet,
Or if they do meet
Won’t hear or understand much
Of the other anyway.
Each is in a bubble,
Comfortable and secure.
The difference is,
And it’s a difference that makes all the difference,
One bubble is based in LaLa Land
While the other is at least grounded in truth,
As dirty and ugly as that sometimes can be,
Yet a truth that can at least call a spade a spade,
And not have to nervously glance over its shoulder
To see if someone thinks that’s somehow racist.
Shovels matter after all
In fact where would our civilization be
Without them?
And yet in our world today
Only half of us are needed,
And it’s always, never
The other half.
(8/16/25)
(“Halves of a Whole”, 2019, original encaustic)
The Real Left/Right Divide
I consider myself a “classical liberal”
Which means I’m a freedom loving
‘Live and let live’ kind of guy.
And that puts me firmly on the Right.
It also marks me as a “conservative”
In today’s political world
Because live and let live doesn’t mean
Change for the sake of change to better the world.
But then I compare myself to someone like Mike Pence,
A known conservative, yet unlike me,
One of the Left, like progressive illiberals,
Because he is clearly a Big Government kind of guy.
It’s a confusing paradox
That in the real world today
You can have liberals and conservatives
On both the Right and Left!
What this shows is simply
The political spectrum of big and little government
Is not the same as the moral compass
Of traditional and progressive values.
What divides the Left and Right
What is embodied by big and little government
Is the difference between
Compulsion and freedom, tyranny and liberty.
(8/6/25)
information\disinformation-
[depends upon your point of view]
divides a society
hatred-crumbles a society
racism-falls a society
we are ALL human-so let's work together for humanity
Downwind of the
Halal Cart
my stomach
starts to growl
Foreign smells
have filled the air
my appetite
to prowl
Those places
I have yet to go
but memory
knows so well
Another life
another time
where Heaven
— sleeps with Hell
(The Corner Of 34th & Market Streets: July, 2025)
J-ubilant
U-nity
N-ullifies
N-ational
E-lection's
L-osers
©bfa042225
Monocrostic (Birthday of Junnel N. Romualdo)
ideal of opulence in the flesh called human
harboring a false sense of control and power
listening to voices you claim as your own
cynical laughter with mouths that spew arrogance
no regards for the blood shed to advance hierarchies
tyrannical systems smitten to hinder harm control
disparaging games with malice of life's spectrum
keeping most in a survivor unconsciousness
barrier resources disguise as community programs
traumatized disabled criminalized harmed violated
those who questioned complained about human rights
which played a major role in worldwide low vibrations
distracted from healing emotional balance of ancestral
self healing self love is the catalyst for love thy neighbors
love is the true frequency for freedom unity is the true rebellion
we are here we are rising we are disrupting
united we love united we fight
AI’s answers—a sad, cold vibe—
To a life lived by the book, beside.
A sclerotic sense, a pallid dread,
When doctrinaire or fanatic is read.
A code’s cul-de-sac moment: prose-weaver’s craft, soaring!
Literature—a proclaimed soul-stirring engineering.
I stray
on purpose
my will
redeemed
When left
of center
to swim
upstream
Against
the grain
my future
hides
On roads
less traveled
past times
— divide
(The New Room: December, 2024)
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