The Director’s Chair

harassing plumes of blown leaves and paper pieces

balloon upward with carefully choreographed scenes and sets

shooting a hopeless humanity with suicidal impulses.

this one meeting her end, body colliding, full on,

a baneful speeding bus, the moment of impact, 

blood spray upwards and in all directions.

noxious graphic set directors directing

human decomposition effects, dead 

bodies decorating the shot. cut! rewrite

the script! aggrandize: more expletive laced 

language, rotting corpses, dismay and despair,

people that don’t pray and everyone dies!

while all around God is really as He always

has been - like a gravity weighted blanket of

ground encompassing fibers and threads, Silent,

drawing downward this last drop of blood; His Son’s.

beaten Body. agony! arranged and arrayed

with nails and wood for with Love to save He shed

the Blood dropping and pooling about His feet.

besieged, but to Rise, Glorified, His Kingdom evermore!

-Gary Edward Geraci

New Clothes for Christmas

Savior, Savior please!

I’m on my knees don’t you see?

Too late to save me?

This flesh I’ve fouled and spoiled,

You wore it to redeem me!

-Gary Edward Geraci

Rattle Away!

Babe in the manger

Grace like crushed orange peel spray

He rattles the famed 

-Gary Edward Geraci

Climbing steps implies a journey of sorts...

You want to know, after I’ve ingested Him, 

you know, whether I will become different, 

animated, 

magical, 

capable of working wonders...

If so, then maybe there’s something to all this after all.  

If not, well then don’t you see, it’s all got 

to be some kind of hoax and all those people 

who don’t believe in “the real presence”, (as you say)

are right after all. 

Well, I can tell you the truth...

I don’t feel a bit of difference at all in that moment...

Unless I’m communing with Him in deep prayer...

        You’ve got to “know” 

the One 

you’re in love with

but that’s the point it’s not an immediate affect change effect or feeling that is so readily apparent to others rather it’s who you are slowly becoming by the very food you are choosing to eat and over time that change it’s going to be apparent to any one who’s really taken the time to get to know you like each and every poem you’ve ever written turns out to be in itself a critical piece of the overall anatomy not one any less important than the other read together each part defining the whole

And it becomes glaringly gloriously joyously apparent to oneself.

-Gary Edward Geraci

Upper Carmen

a refuse pit across the street

this clan with kids constrained by

poverty. we’re sent to school

and church and we’ve each other.

to pick fresh fruit, to sell scrap

free falling from dump trucks where we’re

first to forage and find. my

protector, my big brother,

trades up for dried fish, meat to eat.

sea to see we run to swim

with cousins, friends - our meek compound.

world riches, lusts to smother

our fun and freedom; such sweet

lives a gift from heaven’s High.

-Gary Edward Geraci

She’s like us in most every way

Holy womb hers is.

Sweat and toil? I’m not for sure.

Like us except sin.

Gary Edward Geraci

None Other Like It

How unique; this beauty of one soul. Its con-

Tours of lines, curves, and splines with summits and low

Hollows, like vibrant paints in oil; charcoal rubbed on

Paper; blue hues, bold, but ah! with streaks of yellow.

Rare, not one the same, yet, in pro and con,

Loved. While weak in will, weakened, passions we follow.

Street gutter gullies too broad to breach, base flow

Bridged “by conversion,” this counsel of John.

Placed in our Mother’s hand, now no gift exceeds.

Our dispenser of gifts our dispenser of grace,

Make haste; present this soul thus offered, its needs

And limitations, a spark that turns His Holy Face.

With a loving tender heart of mercy, Christ bleeds!

My soul: my gift - none other like it - my embrace.

-Gary Edward Geraci

Hot Furnace Burning

I can say the words

I can speak the words

Enough times so that the next time,

Stoking them, I can even

Elicit these feelings of intensity

Oh but that would be me doing all the work

Or I can seek out a Person

And when I find Him and go before Him

Well, there’s nothing else I need to do

(At all don’t you see?)

Like going out one blazing afternoon

To meet a lover along the river bank

And from a distance, in that near minute,

Something deep inside leaps by sight alone

-Gary Edward Geraci

Locked Out!

In this His Cross all have a share,

Bleed, brood, but bar none, all to bear.

New pagan ways, feign and lie,

Devil’s inroads - the soul to die.

False freedoms: jealousy, envy; 

Vain, thankless, pinched of liberty.

In dirt I crawled yet yearned for ease,

Spurn not your son forgive me please!

Dire straits, confined, pressed out the breath;

Gaped, gasped, a skyward grasp from death.

Shunned not the Church but it is shut!

Jaunt through mire and slime - tell you what!

This one respite, our high haven;

Jaws of hell spit, stole my heaven;

Locked out! Wait! Streaming feed: movement!

Live! Soul food - the great Sacrament!

Flickering flames, candles, and shadows;

Majestic God - glory follows!

Pray, converse with God; put to trust

His grace and grace to give must,

By clear assent, climb pure heights;

Heirs, fair children! Free, He delights!

Our flesh He took; in Bread now,

Dazed to see, compelled to bow

And bend a knee. Might! Adore!

Christ King! Prostrate, fall to the floor.

Lord Jesus, the Son, I AM.

Born to draw near, in love I am!

- Gary Edward Geraci

I Defeated Satan

I defeated Satan by leaving those

Last two cookies in the cookie jar; how

I’ll ever know for sure, well, I’ll just wait.

I defeated the flesh by pulling up

Two dark church socks with spotted patterns and 

Overstretched elastic bands; they don’t stay up.

I defeated the world by smiling at 

The fool that rode his motorcycle through

The stop sign looking back at me, gloating,

Rocking the cool sign and then slamming 

Into the back of a parked car while I

Tried my best to suppress a laugh which

I couldn’t. No wait that second part didn’t

Really happen, I just wished that it did.

I defeated Satan by leaving those

Last two cookies in the cookie jar; how

I’ll ever know for sure, well, I’ll just wait.

-Gary Edward Geraci

Frames

Love is but times that muscling smack

Fierce passions back,

Intrepid stands,

To lock one’s hands

In prayer and supplication; bust;

Break legions; thrust

Down faithless foes;

Those lies Lord knows.

Lean partialities, agape

Like cloak and cape.

True agape

Shared; One; the Way.

• Gary Edward Geraci

“Marfa, Marfa you are worried and upset about many things”

The woman and the man who beaded sweat

As they threaded the needle that clasped

My fine garmet together. Don’t you love

It’s striped silk inlay that no one else but

I will ever see? Like fine, intricate

Chiseled stone art high above street level

Leveled; hugging the chimney top adorning

Their building; work that only God will see.

-Gary Edward Geraci 

A Flash In the Pan

A corpulent man in a Porsche with a thinner, younger woman standing outside the rear passenger door; waiting while he vacuums its interior.

The church secretary receives a shipment of red wine and round wheat hosts with just her signature - chasing off skateboarders riding the rails past the Virgin Mary. 

An adolescent teen discovers that he can indeed tame the wild, cruel streak imposing itself at the most inconvenient of times.

Cold water from a Yeti drink canister tastes good while “Big Band Swing Sunday” plays in the background...

A giant white Great Egret lands on a log in the muddy river water and patiently waits for a minnow; a flash in the pan.

• Gary Edward Geraci

Prove Saint Srinivasa Ramanujan

“The world needs saints, and all of us, without exception, are called to holiness. We are not afraid!” Pope Francis, October 14, 2018

I

Dear mathematician; a canzone:

A man of India, a child of God.

Born in the south but of gifts, there’s just one.

To sift through numbers - isolated one -

Wrote handwritten books; no proofs - but beauty!

Sure of the work because of its source, one

Man’s journey to publish, to share - this one

Dream drew the intercession of the saints.

Prayers to his gods like prayers to the saints,

Carried a letter to England - only one.

This postal union with Ramanujan:

Professor Hardy and Ramanujan.

II

His mother loved him much; Ramanujan

Was her only son.  She picked his wife, one

Young woman, half is age.  Ramanujan

Loved her but loved math more.  Ramanujan,

Slate and chalk in hand, knew the will of God:

To find and write new math. Ramanujan,

A man with a new wife! Ramanujan,

Would soon have to choose between one beauty

Or another; one country; or beauty

Lying beyond all bounds.  Ramanujan

Prayed without ceasing.  I believe the saints

Heard him; interceding, the work of saints.

III

Yes, messengers these angels and these saints,

Divine will, their concern; Ramanujan 

Their charge.  With no formal training, the saints

Got him to Cambridge.  Through sickness, the saints

Sustained him; a racism victim - one

More trial.  His peers believed not in the saints

Or gods, or in math without proofs.  These saints

Saw to it; hearing his prayers; kin to God,

Bearing bravely; blighty men with no God,

Sending sparks of grace; these works of the saints

Opened eyes and ears!  The realm of beauty;

Novel results soon proven; what beauty!

IV

Nothing else except math; blinding beauty!

First he proved: who needs proofs? Work of the saints!

Then, a concession to rigor, beauty

In bounds and discipline; now more beauty!

Prized scholars respecting Ramanujan,

Genius and status - this man of beauty.

Elected as Fellow; savant of beauty!

A man of India, now the first one

To receive such honors and to be called one

Of the greats.  His rise, a tale of beauty,

A story of struggle; the guidance God

Gives through trial and error. All proofs point to God!

V

Young man, age thirty two, taken by God;

Has taught mankind that order is beauty.

God’s not one of many - this can’t be God;

This one has; another has not; not God.

God is ALL teaches His Son.  For the saints

Inspired by the Holy Ghost; God IS God.

If god is short something this is not God.

While every formula Ramanujan

Wrote could not be proven, Ramanujan 

Was a man of prayer and a man of God.

Subject to reason and proof, love for the One

Trinity; now face to face - All Three: ONE.

Envoi

I believe your soul to be in Heaven, one

With the Lord and His Heavenly Hosts.  God

Chose you to expand math; make proofs - beauty!

If I could ask to validate one saint:

Prove Saint Srinivasa Ramanujan!

-Gary Edward Geraci

Ten Thousand and Counting

Ten thousand processed through Liverpool streets,

A Holy Body, Christ, IS visible. 

Professing, confessing their faith in One

Held high - a spirit of penance and meets;

To follow Him now is a miracle,

The crucified Son - our salvation won.

What the reformers tried to discourage,

Our Eucharistic spirit made possible.

With passing of time, the Spirit to run,

To gather together: Host entourage.

Come, come!

-Gary Edward Geraci

“To Every Human Being Whom Ever Lived Or Will Live Even If For Only A Few Seconds”

black faces

white faces

brown faces

faces of ev-

‘ry color

look magnif-

‘icent in 

flowing white

robes of Heav’n

where my Love

for him or

her (or her

or her) is

no longer

a scandal

or a sin

-Gary Edward Geraci

Norma (Shadorma)

You stayed home 

While the others played;

Watchful eye

While dad strayed.

But the day you turned eighteen,

Free, you flew away!

-Gary Edward Geraci

Mattress Sale

Perma-marker posts for mattresses, pointed 

Posts pushed into the ground, waving yard 

Signs, swaying in the wind, election season,

“Forty Dollars Down!!” Her boss to vote... 

Terrified she’ll lose the job she recently won if 

She doesn’t make sales, a legal, lawful 

Immigrant, single parent of one, awful -

The landlord would wrest away her rental...

/

Less than one mile from here, a homeless man, 

A veteran, ran a war in Iran, a man 

Who stays in the woods; with dirty, infested

Bedding he rests his head, though this night,

Before One, a candle resting in red glass, 

He prays to the Lamb with ‘no place to lay His head.’

/

-Gary Edward Geraci

/

Jesus replied, "Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head." Luke 9:58

Blown Away

i can’t make this veil i see into something other than a veil

*

i don’t jump up and down either upon learning about what’s really under it

*

but i’m blown away in awe none-the-less

Gary Edward Geraci