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If
I didn’t love Jesus so much I’d
kill
myself and pay Him a visit though
killing
myself is suicide and
that’s
a
sin, suicide I mean--and killing
myself--but
anyway sometimes I can’t
wait
to see Him even if that means He
sends
me to Hell for the ultimate sin,
killing
myself that is, suicide that
is--no,
the ultimate sin, at Sunday
School
Miss Hooker, she’s my teacher, she’s our
teacher
I mean, she says that denying
God is the ultimate sin, it’s the most
unforgiveable
sin, says she, she says
that
it’s the only unforgiveable
sin
and she ought to know, she’s got it straight
about
the Bible, both parts I mean, Old
and
New Testaments, she knows more than
I
do but I know enough to know that
both
Old and New are prehistoric and
when
you go that far back in time who’s
counting?
Well, history teachers, maybe,
at
regular school but I’m ten years old,
I’m
in third grade and for the second time
--I
liked it so much the first time through, ha
ha--but
seriously, folks, our teachers
there
know something about everything we
study
so maybe I mean teachers in
a
university where the students’
voices
have changed and they’re hairy in damp
places mainly that make for babies, don’t
ask
me exactly how, some things men aren’t
meant
to know, women too, but it goes down
in
the dark and with the doors locked and drapes
across
the windows and if the TV is
on
it’s not very loud and not football
and
most of them drive to school if they don’t
live
in a hotel there on campus and
sneak
six-packs into their rooms and get drunk
as
shit like my Uncle Marcus puts it
but
only when he’s righteous-drunk and I’m
not
supposed to tell it but I’m not dumb,
just
stupid--or do I mean the other
way
around--and as for Jesus, I think
it
was at a place called Capernaum where
He
dropped in on a wedding somehow and
the
folks ran out of Mogen David so
He
changed the water into wine and you
talk about a pretty neat trick, Uncle
Marcus
said that he can change tobacco
into
wacky-weed but of course he was
gassed
at the time and I only heard him
because
Father sent me to bed but I
had
to get up to pee a few times since
we
had watermelon for dessert and
I’m
small for my age, ditto my bladder
--I
wonder if Jesus could change it in
-to
a hot air balloon, my bladder I mean,
allowing
me to float the Hell out of
this
place and the answer of course is you
bet
your balls, Jesus can do anything
but
if I already know that then why
do
I tempt the Lord my God, that’s Jesus
and
the Father wrapped up in one, like Certs
or
a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, O
ye
of little faith? But ye equals me
and
it’s funny how you know the truth and
it’s
too damn good to be true so you dis
-believe
it, so anyway when I’m dead
though not by my own hand I’ll go to God
to
be judged and at least get a little
glimpse
of Heaven, not that I’ll get to hang,
God’s
likely to send me to Hell instead,
fair’s
fair, and since He’s Jesus, too, even
if
He’s sitting at the Father’s right hand,
I’ll
be able to say (I’ll try not to
brag)
that I’ve finally and truly seen
something,
not that I’ll get to come back to
Earth
and spread the word, so to speak--I saw
that I and the
Father are One and yet
I
and the Father had Their own chairs and
maybe
whispered One to the Other and
maybe
called in the Holy Ghost to help
Them
make a tough decision, like whether
leaving
Pete Rose out of the Hall of Fame
means that the writers will all burn in Hell
as
they kick. Me, I’d be merciful, I
would
let 'em kill themselves. Who's without sin?
Gale Acuff
I have had poetry published in Ascent, Ohio Journal,
Descant, Poem, Adirondack Review, Coe
Review, WorcesterReview, Maryland Poetry
Review, Florida Review, South Carolina Review, Arkansas
Review, Carolina Quarterly, South Dakota Review, Santa
Barbara Review, Sequential Art
Narrative in Education, and many other journals. I have authored three
books of poetry: Buffalo Nickel (BrickHouse
Press, 2004), The Weight of the
World (BrickHouse, 2006), and The Story of My Lives (BrickHouse,
2008).
I
have taught university English in the US, China, and the Palestinian
West Bank.
Tags:
Poetry