I don't want to die, now or later, im
by Gale Acuff
-mortality's my
aim and I mean here
on Earth, not in
some no-body After
-life—I want
Eternity in my home
-town, where I can
buy comic books and ham
-burgers and
peanut brittle and Mallow
-mars and ice cream
with a free second scoop
on Friday
afternoons after school but
I have to run like
Hell to make it to
the order-window
on time and when I'm
late I curse good
but when I make it on
time I'm a
believer and when the girl
opens up again for
me it's mercy
and I'm in love
with her except that our
kids might have
red hair and I'm scared of fire.
Gale Acuff
has had hundreds of poems published in a
dozen countries and have authored three books of poetry. His poems have
appeared in Ascent, Reed, Arkansas Review, Poem, Slant, Aethlon, Florida
Review, South Carolina Review, Carolina Quarterly, Roanoke
Review, 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.
He has taught
tertiary English courses in the U.S, PR China, and Palestine.
