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gunsmoke ballad
by Jim Coppoc
and everybody sees this motherfucker rise up and walk out 3 minutes after johnny
drops him
and he shoots back heavy in our ears and the light still swinging good king louis on
the juke still singing
i see skies of blue
but johnny is lying on the floor in blood
clouds of white
gunsmoke heavy as georgia mud
warm summer day
johnny is lying on the floor in blood
dark summer night
while this motherfucker rises up
and i think to myself
rise up
what a wonderful world
johnny is down in a pool of blood
and i think to myself
motherfucker rise up
what a wonderful world
but johnny is down in a pool of blood
yes i think to myself
rise up motherfucker rise up
what a wonderful world
johnny
Jim Coppoc is an award-winning poet and teacher; a Lecturer at Iowa State University, where he teaches composition and creative writing; and the Special Projects Coordinator for Iowa State’s Center for Excellence in the Arts and Humanities. In addition to his many creative and scholarly efforts, Coppoc has spent most of his life exploring the various media of performance art, having worked as musician, actor, stand-up comic, network radio D.J. and performance poet. Marc Smith, the founder of Slam Poetry, has called Coppoc “one of the new breed giving poetry new breath.”
Coppoc is the author of two chapbooks of poetry and two plays, editor of the forthcoming Tens: an Anthology of SlamFusion Poetry in the Midwest, and runner-up for the 2004 Frieda Stein Fenster Award for Millennial Poetry. His creative work has appeared in dozens of literary journals, including Del Sol Review, Tryst, Barbaric Yawp and San Gabriel Valley Poetry Quarterly, and his scholarly work on performative ethos, the history of performance poetry, and performance as pedagogy is published and presented all over the world, including excerpts in the Poetry 21 supplement to the new Wadsworth Anthology of Poetry. Coppoc’s first full-length book of poetry, Blood, Sex, & Prayer will be released this Summer by Fractal Edge Press. |
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