Veronica’s Face

Played a short podcast and prayed while a sage

Relayed the finer points of meditative

Prayer. Proposed rather recently, a response

While seeking spiritual direction: the

Exciting of the imagination. Citing 

Saints who draw union: picture; feel the warm 

Hands of Jesus Christ pressing against either

Side; face cupped by soft palms and fingers that

Caress. Yet, why should I recoil? But I do!

I’m a man. The only way I can imagine

This love of Jesus is to imitate,

Image His identity; a mere moment:

To place and press my hands on either side of

Veronica’s face. Ah, it’s then love flows.

Gary Edward Geraci

Moved with pity, Veronica wipes the face of Jesus Christ as he carries his cross along the Via Dolorosa to Golgotha. The Sixth Station of the Cross

First Century of the Third Millennium

I live with many people of color

My wife is a woman of color

My neighbors are neighbors of color

I believe I’m a man of color too

I mean there’s some color

To my skin when I look at it

Here are all these people of color

Living together in America

Yes in 21st century America

From what I can tell we’re all

Doing pretty good we’re all

Free we’re all prosperous in

Liberty each in his or her own way

In the beginning God selected a

People of color to save the world

One color but not my color

That’s OK I trust that He 

Knows what He’s doing

It just wouldn’t seem right

After all to call out the Creator

Of the human race for choosing

One color over another color

For choosing a Chosen People

People whom would bring forth a

Savior our Savior a Savior for

People of all colors and so I go to

Church and worship my Creator with

People of many colors many colors.

• Gary Edward Geraci

Awoken

Awake! Awoken

to the issues that we make: 

the issues you break.

Gary Edward Geraci

Gulf of Mexico

I keep my foe in the Gulf

And choose where to battle.

To keep at bay and engulf

With fire, bombs, and dazzle.

Sights set on my home fortress,

They’ll take the river through,

But my walls are not porous;

There is no getting through.

Truth be told, get them early,

Allow not one advance.

Though they’re soft, they are surly,

Surely keep your distance.

Stealth and cover to confuse,

Avoiding all detection,

Lustful beauty bare and loose,

Seeking your defection.

Each work for the same master,

A horrid beast of hate.

To come close, a disaster,

Make no mistake: your fate!

Prayer and purity: your win.

Deal not, protect your soul,

This devil is best kept in

The Gulf of Mexico.

Gary Edward Geraci

material, formal, efficient, and final: aristotle’s four causes

syllables alone, 

create not haiku poems.

hello four causes!

• Gary Edward Geraci

Holding Purses

Maybe I’m just 

being a bad 

sport but there’s 

a certain alienation, 

having married into 

a foreign culture, 

when all the guests are 

speaking their native 

tongue and I am left 

there trying to look delighted; 

finding ways to keep myself 

busy without appearing  

disinterested or behaving like 

a stick-in-the-mud. 

Almost inevitably, 

I’m quite cross by 

the end of the night;

my mood, befouled;

angry at myself 

for being so selfish.

Gary Edward Geraci

Oath of Office

I took an oath I made a vow,

Soft Marxist pronouns here and now

The standard bear our enemies,

Faulting flag, God, and our country’s

History; her founding fathers’

Wisdom; the battles of our brothers

Who fought and died for liberty.

Who took this obligation freely,

So that you and I can speak in freedom,

Pray and worship in His kingdom,

And build our foreign and domestic

Friendships, our Constitution respected.

Yes I pledge true faith and allegiance,

Patriotism: the credence

To discharge the duties of my office,

So help me God - keep me cautious.

Gary Edward Geraci 

5 U.S. Code § 3331. Oath of office: An individual, except the President, elected or appointed to an office of honor or profit in the civil service or uniformed services, shall take the following oath: “I, AB, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United Statesagainst all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.” This section does not affect other oaths required by law.

(Pub. L. 89–554, Sept. 6, 1966, 80 Stat. 424.)

That Daft Fly

That daft fly annihilated 

By a deftly executed swat;

Deadly and final; no mortal soul,

One short life to animate.

That daft fly temporarily 

In temporal and spatial dimension

Supports a burgeoning pesticide

Business where real mortal men and women

With immortality within their sights

Live lives to live eternally. 

That daft fly, no sense of “I” 

No sense of “me” thus no suffering:

No family tie,

That daft fly.

Gary Edward Geraci