Saints Defying Sickly Scientism

Double blind tests, a test testing 

best premises, promises state 

Of recipient’s fervor after 

Ingesting a Real Host or rather

A placebo - placed to gather 

What is sacred - tad sacrilege 

In practice - the inward signs of grace 

The internal dispositions.

For forty fixed days of testing, 

A fatal flaw midst the tested, 

Missed the freedom to correspond 

With worthy, chaste, pure, and lovely hearts,

Just and holy, a clean conscience. 

Of such, unknown but to just One. 

Can confinement effect the free? 

The monk’s cell, the inmate’s prison cage?

Both are bound but both are free, 

These and those who receive worthily. 

But some are bound and not at all free 

This we are certain with certainty. 

Yet among the proofs, the best, the saints: 

With lives of sin and near misses, 

New beginnings, they begin and begin 

Again, their gain their sanctity. 

Gary Edward Geraci

Silent Beaks Speak

silent beaks speak, 

tucked away for now,  

no longer touched, 

waiting for a delivery, 

no mother in sight, 

she’s been detained, 

her maternal warmth absent, 

a tragedy of touchlessness. 

wait, what could be worse? 

human babies in a hotel room, 

gathered together,  ‘products’ of surrogates, 

flown in like commodities, 

pending, to be packaged and delivered, 

alone, no home, bereft of parents, 

touch, a snuggle, a reassuring Whisper. 

silent beaks speak.

Gary Edward Geraci

Relapse

Fierceness yet folly of Friday night riots

Has me reaching for bands of my past like Slayer,

Slipknot and raging songs about 'angels of

Death' and places 'south of heaven.' I get angrier

With each passing verse and more violent my pulse

Playing 'pulse of the maggots' raising my

Blood pressure beyond a safe 'threshold,' the volume

Increasing, my face contorted, scowling, 'nero forte.'

Plunging, I've plunged into the depths of darkness, a relapse

Into 'Gehenna' I've now experienced, falling 

Downward, driven by ‘daily dialogue’ to 

Feel as you feel, to understand your freefall,

Only to come up again gasping, grasping for Light

Cause 'a saint is a sinner' who tries and keeps trying. 

Gary Edward Geraci

To Nature, not to Injury We are Restored to on the Last Day

Tautology free

And tall telling beneath me

Tertullian tells

Gary Edward Geraci

“Any loss sustained by our bodies is an accident to them, but their entirety is their natural property. ... To nature, not to injury are we restored.” Tertullian on the Resurrection of the Flesh, 57.

To Rise Again

inspired by the spirit,

spired skyscapes draw then 

direct the eye, a line

drawn heavenward; diaphanous,

follow Falcon rocket plumes,

divider of the sky,

high above the steeple;

the Ruppell's griffon vulture

flies and chases,

its strength received is power

from on High.

to soar in flight

and fight through the heavy

cloud cover of noxious, riotous smoke 

that would mask a clear purity

and keep us from

drawing near the height

of mercy and grace;

faces fixed, afflicted by

anxiety and abuse

now gentler, softer in appearance.

the bird's-eye, a tired cliche,

energetic drone-eye views: 

a coastal crag and clear

blue waters below underlain 

by shifting sand sifts swift in 

current and constant motion, 

relocation while reshaping 

itself into newer, better 

versions; dendriforms mightier where 

wind buffets and the exposure 

chisels and trains. strengthened and 

battle ready the soldiers 

of Christ advance, ground gained in 

every era, then and now.

Gary Edward Geraci