PERRY SMITH 

“My understanding of the
difference between what is 
true and what is really true”
—Truman Capote,
Music for Chameleons
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I liked the film in black & white
the way film noir used to be back then

The same Haines Hardware Store
there in Emporia on the way to Holcomb
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Buying the rope and tape they’d use
to tie up the Clutter Family victims

The same highways and streets
same courthouse, filling stations
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How the movie crime scene had
all fantasy & make-believe removed

Just that bleak Midwestern noir reality
same old grim cold non-fiction nightmare
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Except Brook’s film was even more
depressing than even my downer novel

Dick parting the Venetian slats
peering outside into the darkness
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The immense noise of the shotgun
did anyone out there hear the shootings?

The same Venetian blinds still there
in that spooky Clutter House window
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Still hanging like in the original scene
with Dick peering out suspiciously

Something as simple & real as that
extending itself outta time into the now
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Just as I tried catching & intertwining
the same scene with words

The film without any demarcations 
filmed with flashlights in the dark