Get this, Saint Stephen,
Who spoke with great wisdom,
Fully inspired by the Holy Spirit,
Was stoned dead by his hearers
Who reviled and despised
This man with his New Gospel.
So why be disappointed
You learned and wise, when the world
Fails to come to you with
Applause and a great prize?
To be ignored is your great prize,
To be ignored is my great prize.
Gary Edward
The key is to question
Ism, ism, ism,
Till the mind makes its ascent; an
Illative sense prism.
Quiz them regarding their
Ism, ism, ism,
Is the truth too painful to share,
A falsehood fraught prison?
Take the time to test each
Ism, ism, ism,
The best conclusion one may reach,
Not made in haste, is then
In Wisdom. look at each
Ism, ism, ism,
The First Principle shown to teach:
Christ the Lord is Risen.
Gary Edward Geraci
Pressured to capitulate; no! though bowled in and rock-bound,
Escarpments sheer, towering in on every side, with grit I gripped,
My fleshy fingers, ripped ragged, food for sharp, frigid, flint edges,
I clawed my way out and rose only to find myself before the Judge.
The disgrace, the wondering thoughts, the invaders from history,
I’ve overcome. now, this Penitentiary, I welcome.
The presentation of one’s whole life; purification; I tremble,
Shake at the prospect; a Just Judge with rights to one’s innermost space.
A fugitive in hiding, a convict behind a pleasant façade, (a banished soul?);
Before God Almighty, all is revealed. I’ll
serve my penance -
A purgatorial sentencing - reparations and atonement for all that is due,
His Justice severe, merciful and fair, forever cleansing, cleansed forever!
The steep heap of past sins, rehashed, replayed; condemnable.
Commendable: the saintly struggle, the arduous climb,
The saint of faults. for my final days were spent in strife but
I didn’t strive alone -a beggar of grace - I too took up my cross so that one day, I too could rise anew.
Gary Edward Geraci
We are a composite and so
Greater than the brute animal
We are a rational mammal
Of body and soul, this we know.
The size of an almond, some think,
Our amygdala is to blame;
The seat of our bias, poison ink,
And where our fears lie, less than tame.
Neuroplasticity, proclaim
The world’s learned, both friend and foe,
We are a rational mammal!
Of body and Soul, this we know.
Less we believe but in a blink,
Let it dominate, all the same,
To the precipice, to the brink
We’d go, playing a blindfold game,
With people seeking pow’r and fame,
And run like beasts from whip and whoa.
We are a composite and so
Greater than the brute animal.
Gary Edward Geraci
Your Grace is enough,
Vulnerable but tough,
A match exploding in flame,
Both feet in the game.
Your Grace is enough,
Enemies of God rebuff,
A light for all people
Love starved, fighting evil.
Your Grace is enough,
Made of the right stuff,
Swinging the sword of prayer,
Your soldiers everywhere.
Your Grace is enough,
Though the road becomes rough,
Through tumult and war,
You are WHO YOU ARE.
Your Grace is enough,
Fit to call their bluff,
Their body, their idol,
Manic and suicidal.
Your Grace is enough,
Not to speak off the cuff,
By the spirit you’re led,
Because for you, He bled.
Your Grace is enough,
Your Grace is enough,
Because for you, He bled,
Because for you, He bled.
Gary Edward Geraci
Body only, if so, the soul has been hacked,
What am I but a wired-up robot?
With actions and responses preprogrammed,
Predictable? pushed out in a row boat,
Down a straight, concrete lined channel
Used to irrigate trees of oranges,
I raise the oar that wets my sleeve of flannel,
My watch strikes noon and I pray the Angelus.
Gary Edward Geraci
Friends? Soil your garments.
The world will come clamoring
Quickly to your door.
Gary Edward Geraci
“Yet you still have a few names in Sardis, people who have not soiled their garments; and they shall walk with me in white, for they are worthy.” Revelation 3:4
Have you persisted all of these years and if so, how?
You appear in the same way,
elevation, pause, looking and seeing, white wafer or is it?
What’s it been like to see us as generational people; do you see us as having made real and lasting advancements; what about now?
The material work that the human race has done, generation after generation, you do allow;
You appear in the same way,
elevation, pause, looking and seeing, water and wine or is it?
Have you persisted all of these years and if so, how?
Much will have crumbled into powder, dust and rust; I too will become ash, I must avow,
But our universities, our intellectual ideas, the good ones seem to persist - maybe a bit.
What’s it been like to see us as generational people; do you see us as having made real and lasting advancements; what about now?
The other hallowed institutions that we’ve raised up to ourselves - wow!
Starting with that tower in Siloam that you spoke of - an accident - the deaths that occurred there, what a fit.
Have you persisted all of these years and if so, how?
And church buildings and sacrificial ruins and a Golden Cow …
Trustworthy, the true accomplishment carried out by a carpenter, a true builder, the Son of God, with wood He split.
What’s it been like to see us as generational people; do you see us as having made real and lasting advancements; what about now?
What is now elevated over the alter is eternal, it has persisted, persisting from when it was first raised by Thou
Some two thousand years ago – the beginning of mankind‘s redemption, solid, You’ve never quit.
Have you persisted all of these years and if so, how?
What’s it been like to see us as generational people; do you see us as having made real and lasting advancements; what about now?
Gary Edward Geraci
The drop of blood from the nose,
The red spattered linen after
The cough - the curse of cancer supposed
Inevitable. the call. hereafter,
A long list of tropes for a
Producer to pick from: objects,
Gestures, and words signifying a
Certain reality for subjects
Human, made clear, reasonable,
The corporeal to the
Intelligible; mind to will;
Signs for man’s condition. the
Christ brings us the physical,
For cleansing and growth in virtue,
His words spoken now Gospel,
And His actions - to make us new.
Gary Edward Geraci
How often in history has it been
Documented? - the family love of
Mary and Joseph and Jesus; the rich,
Ardent love between the Christ and holy
Disciples, the apostles; eternal
Love among God, the Son, and the Holy
Spirit. love purer than the pure many
Of us will have experienced or are
Capable of experiencing yet
Love that we none-the-less yearn for with great
Longing and anticipation. so let
Us beg for a taste of this true Love; love
We hear so much about yet are wanting
In experience. “just a taste” seems like
A fair prayer to the Heavens, just a taste.
Gary Edward Geraci
The thorn laden vine sends runners,
Never changes in character,
Sprouting the same useless mass of
Thorny growth, a mess to remove
From an otherwise, well kept garden.
Useless, fuel for the fire, incapable
Of alteration, coming up again and again,
A crass weed among the desired,
Stately and admired, the beautiful.
What if we are all like this in the end?
A thorny weed in the Garden
Of Eden; certainly one can
Concede, at its root, at it’s weedy
Root, is Christ, the Creator of all things.
Gary Edward Geraci
beauty, touch, fragrance;
the Source, my inheritance;
the sun caught shows streaks,
smudges; set free and fleeing,
she returns to ravish me.
Gary Edward Geraci
I saw a line of Ferraris roar down Park Road 4,
Driving home from Inks Lake, but there were more,
They roared from a distance but purred when they passed.
The thought of an exclusive club with qualifications
Entered my mind, mind you, these expectations:
To be the original owner, the car’s age is three years or less,
And to be a woman in fine, exquisite dress.
Coming soon to my senses I did recall the
Last time I saw a fine line of Ferraris in Manila.
Gary Edward Geraci
Knows not, but answers no,
You’re but a felon, fellow!
Now in this day and age,
I’m the judge and the jury!
Says she; your supervisor
Please, the receiver goes dead.
Still others wear choke collars
Fashioned by gun politics.
The tried standard of law and
Order bypassed by inward
Dictates and a sense of righteous
Superiority.
Mutilating hundreds,
Perhaps thousands,
For the sake of death by self
Prevention, oh don’t lecture me!
One might be inclined to say,
But wait, there’s no lecture here,
No discourse, no deep plumb
For meaning or new reasoning,
Just plain power grabbing;
Powerful, intoxicating,
But short lived and fleeting;
Your profession but a cloak
That falls off leaving you naked,
Exposed at last to the Just Judge.
The Purifying Fire
Cleansing but not consuming,
Loving and full of mercy;
Reeling in horror,
Your darkest corners revealed:
Sanitized by light, Divine light.
Gary Edward Geraci
The comfort in seeing you again,
In all our travels
To find you in service to the Lord,
Wherever we may go.
My kindred, brother and sister,
Here you are once more,
Your difficulties no less than mine.
Yet we gather today.
A curious thing about our faith,
It’s rooted in a Person!
The perseverance to persist
Is as timeless as we sit!
Persecution though subtle and slight
Deters us not the least,
It’s no more a hindrance now,
Than two thousand years ago.
Gary Edward Geraci
Snake sneaks, skulks, every soul
Since Adam’s infected; the purity
Of motives stained by dread disease; control
At best compromised, worst lost; parity
With God! the serpent’s pitch.
Papered behind every good deed, poison:
More than a slight tickle for fame, the itch
For stardom, status and recognition.
Sower of doubts scuttles
Flat and in cloud colored camo; confused,
Muddled abstractions sown; seed struggles
In weeds; the concreteness of crops refused.
Thrust to head a Heel; bruised,
In a slight shift the sleight of hand is bound
And blind men in binds find that they are loosed
And salvation for sinners can be found.
Gary Edward Geraci
Hope is the black cast boot
waiting across the bed
for the boy in the bed
whose brain has stopped working.
In boisterous play (for hundreds have prayed)
now kicking up dust while
compressing the leg whose
bones and brain are quite quickly healing.
Hope is the black cast boot
waiting across the bed, pointing to Heaven,
where the boy in the bed whose brain had stopped working
has gone now for everlasting play.
Gary Edward Geraci
Tinnitus and shiny objects,
Rings and are soon spent,
While love, beauty, and wisdom
Given don’t strip the giver.
So the folly in forcing a linguistic revolution
Upon souls at large…
Which person creates his existence
Or chooses the type of creature she is?
Wholly contingent, the world truly
Doesn’t need and could go on without them.
So the folly in forcing a linguistic revolution
Upon society at large…
The Author shrinks from a character’s pride?
The protagonist who rebuffs the storyline
Knows not the Will of its Creator Whom
Seeks its Highest Good in Ways known to Him alone.
So the folly in forcing a linguistic revolution
Upon God at large…
Gary Edward Geraci
To seek the point in prayer.
Akin to movements in a tribal dance,
Faith is the platform to move and
Rise above what reason knows.
The instrument, the prayer,
And fervent hope are necessary,
Because He first willed it this way,
Woe to me to waste it now.
My well intentioned prayer,
Prayed in charity and purposely,
Is the interceding prayer, Willed,
To effect a change in you.
Gary Edward Geraci
blood rose on a cream colored marble floor stands to instantiate life and death,
Imperfections, incarnate bleeding in the vicinity of a sacrificial stone altar
colorful but drying bouquet, floored, once fresh and illuminating, dying takes on wrinkled, more fragrant flesh then falls apart, plummeting petals, unkempt, soon to be swept
just one petal for now; I bled for you
imperfect, most far from perfection, striving, sinning, “good” people gathering in the state of being perfected and so let ALL be admitted
humans in faith, clinging to the hope their many transgressions will fall and die here, a petal on the floor, by its color, reminding the few who see it of precious blood once shed so that many may also rise
Gary Edward Geraci
The blur of my indiscretions shorn away,
Lucidity doesn’t level but lowers
My prospects, thus interrupted, now they
Are directed to one frailer; cowers
The heart, this lovely young woman laid out,
Sylphlike and deranged, bruised red dot welts shout.
I start to seethe, the tentacles of my
Addiction I’ve done very little to fight;
Its tenacity to maraud, rob, ply
Innocence; this pure angelic invite.
God help me! if it is not me to spare,
Give me the strength to save her from this snare!
Gary Edward Geraci
(although I didn’t quite get it at first)
to be TO BE
sounds like poetry
I am I AM
either TRUTH or sham
to be TO BE
not an entity
I am I AM
way above the man
to be TO BE
ONE NECESSITY
I am I AM
outside the world’s plan
to be TO BE
ONE REALITY
I am I AM
the Lord, Son of Man
to be TO BE
Lord God, Almighty
I am I AM
His Son is the Lamb
to be TO BE
is in Love with me
I am I AM
to Love, I too, can
Gary Edward Geraci
