Gale Acuff

I’ve got nothing going on after church

and Sunday School today, I’ve got homework
but I’ll do that Monday morning, I could
play with the dog but I forget he’s dead,
run over three days ago, God damn it,
and I’ve got comic books but I’ve read ’em
all and more than once and as to TV
Father and his Schiltzes take control and
as for Mother, she’s no fun, she reads and
reads and reads and when I interrupt her
she just says Umm or Bother your father
and never looks up so sometimes I walk
back to church, there’s no one around, I have
the whole place to myself, praise the Lord, and
climb into the pulpit and give God Hell.

Gale Acuff                            

Gale Acuff has had poetry published in Ascent, Reed, Poet Lore, Chiron Review, Cardiff
Review, Poem, Adirondack Review, Florida Review, Slant, Nebo, Arkansas Review, South
Dakota Review, Roanoke Review and many other journals in a dozen countries. He has authored
three books of poetry: Buffalo Nickel, The Weight of the World, and The Story of My Lives.
Gale has taught university English courses in the US, China, and Palestine, where he currently
teaches at Arab American University.