Sometimes you die when it's not really your

by Gale Acuff

time is something I learned from TV, which

never lies when you're ten years old, it's just

when you're older that it doesn't seem true

or maybe I mean the opposite, I

live long enough to make it look silly

so I get wiser, older anyway,

and a little smarter, maybe not lots

but enough to get angry so that when

I die I die disgusted with the world

and the ways it tries to deceive me, not

that I wouldn't screw over the world it

-self, I think it's called sin and it's next of

kin to stupidity, which is what I

am―have is what I mean, or it means me.

Gale Acuff has had hundreds of poems published in a dozen countries and is the author of three poetry collections. He has taught university English courses in the US, China, and Palestine, where he teaches at Arab American University.