—Poetry by Gale Acuff, Zababdeh, Palestine
—Art Courtesy of Public Domain
—Art Courtesy of Public Domain
Nobody really dies swears my Sunday
School teacher, we go on to the After
-life, she says, of Heaven or Hell and me,
I'll go to Hell she suggests although she
didn't say so in so many words, it
was the way she looked at me when she said
it, so I know that she had me in mind
so after class I asked her to commit
herself but she only looked away and
answered We must all get right with Gale, God,
when she meant not Gale, God but God, Gale, which
is how I know that one day when I'm old
enough she'll marry me so I didn't
correct her but took it as a sign from
Gale—from God, that is. Or are we Jesus?
_________________
When you die you're halfway between life and
death and I wonder what it would be like
to stay that way eternally, maybe
that means I'd be God Almighty so
after Sunday School this morning I ask
my teacher what she thinks but her eyes go
wide and almost wild and suddenly we're
on our knees praying or she was, I just
sort of stare at her, her eyes shut like sleep
but she's awake so maybe like talking
in her sleep and then Amen and Amen
she speaks and I come in on the second
Amen and then we help each other to
our feet and she smiles and asks how I feel
and I ask How do I feel about what?
School teacher, we go on to the After
-life, she says, of Heaven or Hell and me,
I'll go to Hell she suggests although she
didn't say so in so many words, it
was the way she looked at me when she said
it, so I know that she had me in mind
so after class I asked her to commit
herself but she only looked away and
answered We must all get right with Gale, God,
when she meant not Gale, God but God, Gale, which
is how I know that one day when I'm old
enough she'll marry me so I didn't
correct her but took it as a sign from
Gale—from God, that is. Or are we Jesus?
_________________
When you die you're halfway between life and
death and I wonder what it would be like
to stay that way eternally, maybe
that means I'd be God Almighty so
after Sunday School this morning I ask
my teacher what she thinks but her eyes go
wide and almost wild and suddenly we're
on our knees praying or she was, I just
sort of stare at her, her eyes shut like sleep
but she's awake so maybe like talking
in her sleep and then Amen and Amen
she speaks and I come in on the second
Amen and then we help each other to
our feet and she smiles and asks how I feel
and I ask How do I feel about what?
Nobody wants to die I tell my Sun
-day School teacher after class but she says
No, Gale, you're wrong, or if they do they should
when their time is up because then if they've
been good they'll dwell with God eternally
but if they're been bad then they go to Hell
and suffer for the same amount of time
until God decides to end everything
and not just human beings and then she
smiles and I'm only ten years old and I
love her but she's out of her mind and this
is religion but I have to keep my
mouth shut or I'll cause problems for myself
and how can timelessness be made of time?
And just look at what happened to Jesus.
_________________
I don't love anybody anymore
because they're all going to die and leave
me all alone or I'll die first and back
-atcha though at Sunday School they say that
we'll all meet again in the sweet bye and
bye and so on, I'm only ten years old,
I don't care much for what's to come but more
for what I have or what I lost and that
makes me even older and I'd stop go
-ing to church save that I've got nothing
else happening Sunday mornings, no good
TV, only news shows and religion
and I don't do homework for regular
school 'til Monday morning so I just lie
in bed Sundays 'til I move the Spirit.
When I die at last I won't care too much
about what I left behind here on Earth,
I guess, I can't be sure but the After
-life means the end of everything I know
down here whether I'm in Heaven or Hell
and I hear Heaven's better—at church and
Sunday School we don't sing the praises of
the Bad Place but maybe in the Bad Place
I will and anyway my Sunday School
teacher swears that that's where I'm headed and
me only ten years old so I'd better
get saved and right with God, etc.,
so I’ll wind up in the Good Place and not
just to get God's judgment but be happy
forever. Not that I'm not happy now.
_________________
Watch me go to Hell when I die I say
to my Sunday School teacher, whatever
you do to save me or my immortal
soul and then I stomp out of the classroom,
she caught me chewing gum and that's a sin
she says, to do so in the Lord's House, that's
a fancy phrase for church and anyway
it's not technically that, it's Sunday
School and I told her so and she said That's
what I meant so I said Say what you mean
so she said All right, young man (I'm ten
years old, all of us children are) I say go
home this instant and that's where I came in,
leaving in a flash—Astro Boy is on
and then American Bandstand. Amen.
about what I left behind here on Earth,
I guess, I can't be sure but the After
-life means the end of everything I know
down here whether I'm in Heaven or Hell
and I hear Heaven's better—at church and
Sunday School we don't sing the praises of
the Bad Place but maybe in the Bad Place
I will and anyway my Sunday School
teacher swears that that's where I'm headed and
me only ten years old so I'd better
get saved and right with God, etc.,
so I’ll wind up in the Good Place and not
just to get God's judgment but be happy
forever. Not that I'm not happy now.
_________________
Watch me go to Hell when I die I say
to my Sunday School teacher, whatever
you do to save me or my immortal
soul and then I stomp out of the classroom,
she caught me chewing gum and that's a sin
she says, to do so in the Lord's House, that's
a fancy phrase for church and anyway
it's not technically that, it's Sunday
School and I told her so and she said That's
what I meant so I said Say what you mean
so she said All right, young man (I'm ten
years old, all of us children are) I say go
home this instant and that's where I came in,
leaving in a flash—Astro Boy is on
and then American Bandstand. Amen.
When I came home from Sunday School
I changed
into my old clothes and hung my good ones
up, then fell asleep and dreamt about that
new wine in old wineskins or old wine in
new skins or old in old or new in new
or whatever the Hell it is, I get
no farther than the combination of
words, truth is a babble to me any
-way, and when I woke I yawned three times,
then got up to wash my face and pee, then
went downstairs and got to Sunday dinner
just as Mother was clearing the table and
asked her why she didn't call me but she
said I called and called, you must've been
tired and I said Yes ma'am, I think that life’s
dead.
__________________
One day you're dead and the next you're still a
-live even though you're still dead but that's life
at church and Sunday School anyway, who
am I to doubt it when since I'm only 10
and lots younger than the grownups there who
along with me are lots younger than God?
So I guess we're a big family although
I don't get to meet most of ‘em 'til I
die and go to Heaven to get judged, my
soul anyway, and then sent to Hell or
allowed to hang up there in Paradise
forever, which means that even when dead
I'll never get to meet everybody,
not everyone anyway, so I guess
only God gets to. Is that why He's God?
I changed
into my old clothes and hung my good ones
up, then fell asleep and dreamt about that
new wine in old wineskins or old wine in
new skins or old in old or new in new
or whatever the Hell it is, I get
no farther than the combination of
words, truth is a babble to me any
-way, and when I woke I yawned three times,
then got up to wash my face and pee, then
went downstairs and got to Sunday dinner
just as Mother was clearing the table and
asked her why she didn't call me but she
said I called and called, you must've been
tired and I said Yes ma'am, I think that life’s
dead.
__________________
One day you're dead and the next you're still a
-live even though you're still dead but that's life
at church and Sunday School anyway, who
am I to doubt it when since I'm only 10
and lots younger than the grownups there who
along with me are lots younger than God?
So I guess we're a big family although
I don't get to meet most of ‘em 'til I
die and go to Heaven to get judged, my
soul anyway, and then sent to Hell or
allowed to hang up there in Paradise
forever, which means that even when dead
I'll never get to meet everybody,
not everyone anyway, so I guess
only God gets to. Is that why He's God?
Sometimes when you're dead you're just dead
I swear
to my Sunday School teacher after class,
I'm still angry because she took away
my Wonder Woman comic hidden in
-side my workbook, it was a good fit but
she nabbed me anyway, X-ray vision
is what she must have and if so then there
must be something to religion after
all, the Bible says somewhere that Jesus
rose from the dead, which is a pretty neat
power, and Miss Hooker says that when I die
and if I go to Heaven but maybe
even if I don't I'll see Him face to
face, God to boot, and the Holy Ghost. When
she gives it back next week I'll live again.
___________________
I'll be dead one day and that will be it
even though at church and Sunday School
death is just the beginning of life, the real
life, the life to come, the Hereafter or
the Afterlife and how I'm living now
is just some preparation and I'm ten
years old and I may be innocent in
some way though not the original-sin
style and I'm not sure I believe in all
I'm getting Sunday mornings but I
do believe as I walk to church from home
that's it's somehow holy to exercise
and when the season's right enjoy flowers
and trees and birds and the occasional
snake or lizard that slithers just ahead.
___________________
Today’s LittleNip:
Some people die at 25 and aren’t buried until 75.
—Benjamin Franklin
____________________
Today's new visitor, Gale Acuff has had hundreds of poems published in a dozen countries and has authored three books of poetry: Buffalo Nickel, The Weight of the World, and The Story of My Lives. His poems have appeared in Ascent, Reed, Arkansas Review, Poem, Slant, Aethlon, Florida Review, South Carolina Review, Carolina Quarterly, Roanoke Danse Macabre, Ohio Journal, Sou'wester, South Dakota Review, North Dakota Quarterly, New Texas, Midwest Quarterly, Poetry Midwest, Adirondack Review, Worcester Review, Adirondack Review, Connecticut River Review, Delmarva Review, Maryland Poetry Review, Maryland Literary Review, George Washington Review, Pennsylvania Literary Journal, Ann Arbor Review, Plainsongs, Chiron Review, George Washington Review, McNeese Review, Weber, War, Literature & the Arts, Poet Lore, Able Muse, The Font, Fine Lines, Teach.Write., Oracle, Hamilton Stone Review, Sequential Art Narrative in Education, Cardiff Review, Tokyo Review, Indian Review, Muse India, Bombay Review, Westerly, and many other journals.
Gale has taught tertiary English courses in the US, PR China, and Palestine. He will soon return to the U.S. after years of teaching at the Arab American University in Palestine. Welcome to the Kitchen, Gale, and don't be a stranger!
____________________
—Medusa
I swear
to my Sunday School teacher after class,
I'm still angry because she took away
my Wonder Woman comic hidden in
-side my workbook, it was a good fit but
she nabbed me anyway, X-ray vision
is what she must have and if so then there
must be something to religion after
all, the Bible says somewhere that Jesus
rose from the dead, which is a pretty neat
power, and Miss Hooker says that when I die
and if I go to Heaven but maybe
even if I don't I'll see Him face to
face, God to boot, and the Holy Ghost. When
she gives it back next week I'll live again.
___________________
I'll be dead one day and that will be it
even though at church and Sunday School
death is just the beginning of life, the real
life, the life to come, the Hereafter or
the Afterlife and how I'm living now
is just some preparation and I'm ten
years old and I may be innocent in
some way though not the original-sin
style and I'm not sure I believe in all
I'm getting Sunday mornings but I
do believe as I walk to church from home
that's it's somehow holy to exercise
and when the season's right enjoy flowers
and trees and birds and the occasional
snake or lizard that slithers just ahead.
___________________
Today’s LittleNip:
Some people die at 25 and aren’t buried until 75.
—Benjamin Franklin
____________________
Today's new visitor, Gale Acuff has had hundreds of poems published in a dozen countries and has authored three books of poetry: Buffalo Nickel, The Weight of the World, and The Story of My Lives. His poems have appeared in Ascent, Reed, Arkansas Review, Poem, Slant, Aethlon, Florida Review, South Carolina Review, Carolina Quarterly, Roanoke Danse Macabre, Ohio Journal, Sou'wester, South Dakota Review, North Dakota Quarterly, New Texas, Midwest Quarterly, Poetry Midwest, Adirondack Review, Worcester Review, Adirondack Review, Connecticut River Review, Delmarva Review, Maryland Poetry Review, Maryland Literary Review, George Washington Review, Pennsylvania Literary Journal, Ann Arbor Review, Plainsongs, Chiron Review, George Washington Review, McNeese Review, Weber, War, Literature & the Arts, Poet Lore, Able Muse, The Font, Fine Lines, Teach.Write., Oracle, Hamilton Stone Review, Sequential Art Narrative in Education, Cardiff Review, Tokyo Review, Indian Review, Muse India, Bombay Review, Westerly, and many other journals.
Gale has taught tertiary English courses in the US, PR China, and Palestine. He will soon return to the U.S. after years of teaching at the Arab American University in Palestine. Welcome to the Kitchen, Gale, and don't be a stranger!
____________________
—Medusa
Gale Acuff
For upcoming poetry happenings in
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Photos in this column can be enlarged by
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Would you like to be a SnakePal?
All you have to do is send poetry and/or
photos and artwork to
kathykieth@hotmail.com. We post
work from all over the world—including
that which was previously published—
and collaborations are welcome.
Just remember:
the snakes of Medusa are always hungry—
for poetry, of course!
Northern California and otherwheres,
click on
UPCOMING NORCAL EVENTS
(http://medusaskitchen.blogspot.com/p/wtf.html)
in the links at the top of this page.
Photos in this column can be enlarged by
clicking on them once, then clicking on the x
in the top right corner to come back to Medusa.
Would you like to be a SnakePal?
All you have to do is send poetry and/or
photos and artwork to
kathykieth@hotmail.com. We post
work from all over the world—including
that which was previously published—
and collaborations are welcome.
Just remember:
the snakes of Medusa are always hungry—
for poetry, of course!
shiny new speedboat
parked on his lawn—
where now, voyager?