Contemplatives in the Middle of the World

Valuable, verily volatile, a voluble Volvo salesman voices the first reading, rich with alliteration, sacred literature, Scripture, during a votive funeral Mass for a vocation director, finally breathed his last just prior to summer vacation, voice and vocals amplified by a VOX tube driven sound cabinet - sounds suspect to some “All just poetry” but I suspect you’ve already thought of that...

I mean we get that

We all get that

But you sally towards us now - an ally - while just yesterday - the wile of society - all together gathered masticating salad sides and pizza plates at Sally and Sals Pizzaria -  swearing to all these allegiances with modernity and eternity - piece of a platitude: this attitude towards a man and a woman locked in wedlock - multitudes of children - for the rest of their human existence - faithful only to each other... 

No, this doesn’t escape us

Nothing like this is going to get past us

Even missionaries to mission lands accept missing the faces of those who will eventually take the seed. Will that be my mistake? No. How many may now know of Peter and how many may now know of Paul without Peter and Paul ever having known them? Ever. Millions upon millions. Meanwhile, mentoring men on uhm

the works of Undset upset milquetoast millennials who’d rather just uh coast... 

Well they’ve been dead for a long time

We wouldn’t expect it to be easy to understand

This mission’s a perennial slinging of the grain, singing in and out of season - woody weeds among the wheat- granted, a yellow speck among a sea of yellowish green - you don’t quite stand out well enough - you won’t -  more like vague poems recited by heartbroken vagabonds - those few who refuse shelter for fear of theft of the few things left they own - “the stench of sin” - once obscure poets themselves...

Yet we’d call it a masterpiece and you a laureate among poets

We’re not so troubled by that after all

- Gary Edward Geraci

Thy Kingdom Come

GLORIFIED body

forever better than the young

one once long ago

-Gary Edward Geraci

Is it I?

Christ is the bread.
Form fixed before
Creation: time and space.

Christ is the bread.
A big bang breaks:
Gas, mole, and matter.

Christ is the bread.
Nuts shed smooth shells 
Till rooted: tall trees.

Christ is the bread.
Souls in the womb:
Nine months to nourish.

Christ is the bread.
Words: willed to write,
To sing, to recite.

Christ is the bread.
Form: fixed before
Ink marks the parchment.

Christ is the bread.
Hands consecrate.
In sin: complicit.

Christ is the bread.

And while they were at the table eating, Jesus said, “Amen I say to you, one of you will betray me – one who is eating with me.“ But they began to be sad, and to say to him one by one, “Is it I?“ Mark 14:18-19

“Called to the Peripheries”

Dedicated to those living in the “margins of society”, “where the need resides”, “in the peripheries”, “the most vulnerable”, and “to those who have lost all hope.”  

Where the Bentleys,

The Benzes,

The million dollar mansions

Are starving for God

In their abundance of riches;

The poorest of the poor.

Yet how come all the focus 

Is on the resource poor?  

I guess it’s easier

To drive a van full of

Missionaries to a place

Under a bridge than

To bust into a gated

Community of million dollar

Homes where the

Real poverty is to be found.  

-Gary Edward Geraci

“LUCKLESS LUCIFER LOSES THAT SEAT AT YOUR TABLE”

ineluctable,

at the table of your life:

Jesus! you’re in luck!

- Gary Edward Geraci

The Ballade of Three Sisters

Beat breaks between trombone blasts, syncopate

Swings left then right, a swivel broadened blast

Of brass; wide eyed fair ladies dressed to date,

Gents, shoulders back, stand straight as jugs of iced

Cucumber strawberry - décor - fruit fast

To fall but gently, one by one to fall

Below the spigot; spirits rising fast,

Three sisters, three have wed, one summer ball.

But grinding, lurching preludes; fugues, Bach; fate

Was begging: “You! Surrender! Chase your lust!”

With winding beaded prayers she made; to make

Intentions to her Maker: “King and Christ

My intercessor: Chaste, I’ll pray and fast!

This dearest husband, shield him from the fall

And keep him kind until we meet at last.”

Three sisters, three have wed, one summer ball.

Bated breath, wait! Ah, the groomsmen are late!

Be patient, stay strong. Look! They’re here at last!

Horns blaring, blasting; ball in full swing. Great

This pace, cascading brides and grooms at last

Now lead; the sound of silk swish swirling past; 

The dancer’s whirring, outer boundary gowns fall

Then fill; guys spin and catch their gals. At last,

Three sisters, three have wed, one summer ball.

These gifts of selves - we’re one - we’ve sacrificed,

The joys of children fill our house and hall.

Vocation - vows now honored, praised and prized.

Three sisters, three have wed, one summer ball.

- Gary Edward Geraci