PERRY SMITH 

“my attitude toward art

and life and the balance

between the two”

—Truman Capote,

Music for Chameleons
_________________

Finally I left Brooks alone
he was glad to see me go

No director can stand it
an author staring over his shoulder
________________

My intense critical surveillance 
had made both him & me edgy

The Editor of The Telegram
Garden City’s only newspaper
__________________

Felt the same about my invading
his Kansas inner sanctum kingdom

Presuming to write a trashy novel
about such a sordid subject
______________

Publicizing their tragedy and
making money from the whole story

Brooks got the same treatment
Finney County folks wanted to forget
________________

Midwesterners are a secretive lot
American Gothic a way of life for them

How else to survive out there
endless miles of wheatfields forever
_______________

Stark overwhelming emptiness
out in the middle of nowhere

A single desultory railroad track
straight as an arrow outta nowhere
_______________

A highway heading into nothingness
coming & going thru Dante’s Hell

Route 50 under a cruel endless sky
sleek Greyhound busses hissing by