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Asheville

Gary Copeland Lilley 
Homeward angels sing in the city
Mountain music hollers to the trees
North Carolina land of the slave
Drive highway 40 through the home of the braves
Thomas Wolfe and O Henry
What? No monument for anybody Cherokee
	Except at the cigar store
Let me stop and catch my breath
Gotta cut down on the 10 pound cigarettes
	And drop my butt in Asheville

Damn your popguns I shoot magnums
Trying to expand the American canon
In my class I teach Jean Toomer
Black Arts Movement
	And revolution
Mix it together rub it in like lotion
So come on put me to the test
	And I’ll bust a poem
For one cigarette
Textile mill wage slaves
On highway 40 through the home of the braves

You should meet my family
The misdemeanors and the felonies
Teacher, worker, farmer, minister
A crazy mix of saints and sinners
	And on the holidays
We smoke, we drink, deal cards and pray
We pour libations on the graves
	Of the ancestors
The small church where Jesus saves
Off highway 40 near the home of the braves
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