PERRY SMITH 

“I think most writers, 
even the best, overwrite.
I  prefer to underwrite.”
—Truman Capote,
Music for Chameleons
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The same dumpy motel room
on the outskirts of Garden City

How many cold spectral nights
in that forlorn Kansas goth town
_______________

Drinking a bottle of Scotch
just to get thru another night

There’s no way to describe it
a strange shabby cheap cell
_____________

High plains as much a prison
as Perry Smith there in his cell

The landscape with its own captives
There’s no escape from it all
____________

Stark panorama of wheat fields
tall lonely white silos by the tracks

My mind meandering incessantly
looking for some kind of relief
_______________

Yet isn’t this what I wanted
to become a Killer in the know?

To know what it was like to be
Perry Smith stuck way out there
________________

Knowing every captive detail
just waiting to hang him dead

Every month, every night
every day the same old thing
______________

Brooks the director capturing it
the same way I did back then

Making something cold-blooded
come alive again & be HOT