Weeping for Lazarus

 

You wept for mankind;

Scanning your twelve followers,

Your fate was their fate.

Gary Edward Geraci

video in the mail

 (dearest Flannery O’Connor: One Heart now)

dad once wrote in, gave them my address, 

requesting one of those  ‘calling you 

back home’ videos. I wasn’t interested.

like a dog, I was chasing girls, not church 

dogma. But I held unto it anyway. 

some years later, I did come back to 

church, strong. Though it turns out dad had turned 

away, didn’t like the ‘new’ Mass, wanted 

things like they used to be, and just stopped 

going to Sunday services. My eldest 

brother felt the same way, wound himself 

so tightly to anti-Pope Internet 

people, he ended up leaving it

all together, making his announcement 

right about when my dad laid down to die. 

my younger brother had also gotten 

out completely, a good while back, 

a born-again evangelical now 

or something like that. funny, how 

all three of us were altar boys growing 

up, going to Mass every Sunday 

like ‘good Catholic’ people do. 

I don’t know what happened to us but 

only it’s a suffering I now offer up.

I phoned for a priest who visited 

my dad, watched him receive Viaticum and 

what would be his last Holy Communion. 

Gary Edward Geraci

Aha Ka Paingun? (Ahhah kah pah een woone)

 

Aha ka paingun?

Sins like lead, hell’s my doom,

Aha ka paingun?

Eternal reparations loom,

Aha ka paingun?

Boxed in, four walls, dank room,

Aha ka paingun?

Putrid, and full of gloom,

Aha ka paingun?

They’ll spit and spat on my tomb,

Aha ka paingun?

When the noose tightens and consumes

Aha ka paingun?

This gross life brought forth from a mother’s womb.

Aha ka paingun?

Quick, bring me the Bridegroom!

Aha ka paingun?

The life I led, lies and fumes

Aha ka paingun?

Of smoke and wayward tunes,

Aha ka paingun?

Manmade idols, costumes!

Aha ka paingun?

Once baptized, may I assume?

Aha ka paingun?

Your Mercy? God’s Mercy I presume!

Aha ka paingun?

My Catholic faith! I resume…

Aha ka paingun?

Lord, after death, shall I bloom?

Gary Edward Geraci

Leisure

 

free time; more than this,

is leisure, soaked in Wisdom:

tree top leaves rustle,

cicadas pulse out alarms

and the Spirit burns inside. 

Gary Edward Geraci

He Loved Dearly

 

Subtle, secular satire, a precious gem, 

A green sapphire: we are better than them.

How they kneel and pray to His mother dearly.

Praying to the mother He loved dearly.

CHORUS. Praying to the mother He loved dearly.

We mock their disagreements, divisions,

From our pedestal high, no illusions

Where sound science informs and illumines.

Oh, their prayers to the mother He loved dearly!

CH. Singing to the mother He loved dearly.

Institutional coup, they’re now our tools,

Peopled with letters, the rest are all fools,

With restive ridicule we tear down their stories.

Unceasing prayer to the mother He loved dearly.

CH. Chant hymns to the mother He loved dearly.

Seek to be worldly and pressure near peers,

To cleave to the rich who live without tears,

And leave all religion: its candles and scandals.

Intercessions from the mother He loves dearly.

CH. Venerating the mother He loves dearly.

Gary Edward Geraci