Gale Acuff
One day you wake up dead in Heaven for
God’s judgment, it’s either Heaven or Hell
and I’m pulling for Heaven but I’ll take
what I can get, I guess eternal pain
is better than no feeling at all but
don’t quote me, I might find out one day I’m
wrong and then spend Eternity suffer
-ing like nobody’s business and all be
-cause I sin too much – sin’s a gift from God
to use wisely and I didn’t and don’t
and won’t have and will wind up tormented,
not that I’m not in torment now, it’s just
I never go anywhere but church and
school and the A & P with Mother and
barber with Father. He sleeps in the chair.
I don’t want to die but here I am dead
before my time, I’m only 10 and of
course I’m still alive, I’m just feeling dead,
if the dead can feel, that’s what I told my
Sunday School teacher after class but she
said No, Dear, you’re not dead, you’re not even
close to it or any closer than most
folks are, you’re just playing dead and I said
There are many things I play at that I
don’t know beans about – I’m a race car
driver or a cowboy or a soldier, as
a solder I kill and get killed many
times, so do my imaginary foes,
it’s like the resurrection and she said
That’s a very good game. Then she killed me.
Gale Acuff has had poems published in a dozen countries and has authored three books of poetry. He has taught tertiary English courses in the US, PR China, and Palestine.
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