ANSWERED PRAYERS 

—Truman Capote, Too Brief a Treat: 
The Letters of Truman Capote 

When did I realize—
I was writing something different?

What made IN COLD BLOOD—
a different kind of novel?
____________

Ditching everything I knew—
calling it a nonfiction novel?

Different than my early stories—
OTHER VOICES, OTHER ROOMS?
____________

Different than my travelogues—
my filmscript for THE INNOCENTS?

Was it later toward the end—
leaving ANSWERED PRAYERS undone?
____________

Had Kansas really changed me—
subverting and seducing me?

Queering me into writing this—
strange “nonfiction” novel?
____________

The bleak gothic landscape—
the texture of language itself?

Forcing me to junk everything—
all the genres I ever knew
____________

Exiling myself outta myself—
then putting me back in

NO more invisible reportage—
instead becoming the Other
____________

Telling the story all over again—
alone here in this darkness

PERRY SMITH AND ME 

“The novel of 
living together
as two men”
—Verlaine
_____________

Perry Smith my lover—
my tattooed caged stud

My Lansing Death Row—
young convict cocksman
_____________

How I loved him so—
getting him off behind bars

I fed and pampered him—
visited him daily in prison
_____________

I sucked him off a lot—
we had nothing else to do

I got him an attorney—
going thru all the appeals
_____________

I was the only one he—
trusted enough to tell me

Flexing his Tiger Head tattoo—
as I slowly sucked him off
_____________

What really happened that—
horrible Holcomb night

It wasn’t in Cold Blood—
it was Perry’s sheer jealousy
_____________

Knowing Dick Hickcock—
was gonna go for the girl

That’s why Perry did it—
those shotgun murders
_____________

Shocking & scaring Dick—
to death with his lover’s rage

Escaping down to Mexico—
then running outta money
_____________

Killers taste different—
knowing they’re gonna hang

You can smell and taste it—
each time they CUM they DIE

ALL THE SUAVE SWANS 

—for Truman Capote

“Black on flat water 
past jonquil lawns”
—James Merrill
“The Black Swan”
____________________

LA CÔTE BASQUE wealthy ladies—
gliding by like suave swans on a lake

Truman Capote with his catty little glare—
doing his still-unfinished unspeakable novel 
__________________

ANSWERED PRAYERS indeed but not for—
many of Capote’s High Society female friends

The beginning of Miss Capote’s social suicide—
spilling the beans on the dying Jet Set queens
____________________

Norman Mailer shrugs saying “So what?”—
“Let’s hear some really indecent dirt”

“I know he’ll share some exquisite gossip—
if people only knew what Filthy Rich do”
________________

“All it takes is a martini or two to get—
them bitching & moaning about themselves”

Using pseudonyms for their real names—
Capote squeals on the Suave Swans
____________

A private chic chaos swirling in his wake—
the Swan Outlaws uneasily questioning

Their black necks arching in distain—
singing their bleak bitter Swan Songs
________________

What did they expect from the bitchy—
journalist author of IN COLD BLOOD?

Needless to say much shock & rage—
chagrin & embarrassment shared by all
____________

The pain of the petulant Sleek Swans—
betrayed beyond their worst expectations

Some swallowing sleeping pills to die—
others fleeing to Europe to mope & weep
_______________

The coy Enchanter sipping his cocktails—
all the time plotting, scheming to trash them

The illusion of upper class invulnerability—
turning hollow, marrow of cold winter
________________

The hollowness of Suave Swan sorrow—
did they think it could possibly last forever?
_____________

Were they no different than the ex-cons—
deluding themselves like poor Perry Smith?

Were they any less rapacious than Killer—
Dick Hickcock haunting Holcomb Kansas? 
__________________

Like some innocent blond child there—
on the bank admiring the graceful swans

Capote could see no difference between—
Fifth Avenue elite and ex-con hoodlums
___________

Cruising the brilliant ice-cold waters—
the suave sophisticated Society Swans

Emblems of spoiled evil Black Swans—
marveling at their own bliss & sleek suavity
____________

LA CÔTE BASQUE shattering illusions—
that whole Jet Set jettisoned adieu 

Is that what happens when a writer—
gets disillusioned with things?

The Writer

William Sauro

CAPOTE THE WRITER 

“Remember, first of all,

 that no one in the larger 

world cares whether you 

write or not.  If you want 

to write, it is you and you 

alone who must create the 

space, that will make 

writing possible.”

—Paul Russell, author of

THE UNREAL LIFE OF

SERGEY NABOKOV

_____________________

Which is what Capote did—
in order to survive way Out There

Gawd knows Truman was—
strange & outré enough as it was
__________________

He needed Harper Lee desperately—
to accompany him Out There

Because that’s what it really was—
compared with New York City
_____________

He simply loved & adored NYC—
loved the feel of pavement under

His heels going clickity-click down—
busy classy chic Fifth Avenue
_______________

Major thoroughfare of Manhattan—
Fifth Avenue crossing Midtown 

Especially 49th Street to 60th Street—
lined with prestigious shops & resaurtants
_________________

After all, isn’t that where Tiffany’s was—
the "most expensive street in the world"?

Once he’d done that, go figure what—
really matters to a writer like Capote
_________________

Doesn’t it seem strange to you that—
he’d give William Shawn a call right away?

After reading the little article there—
that morning in The New York Times?
_____________________

Why would Capote even want to—
go out there to that godforsaken hell?

And be on the Santa Fe Super Chief—
with Harper Lee as soon as possible?
_________________

Was it literary ambition that drove him—
desire for GONE WITH THE WIND fame?

Wanting to be America’s very own Valentin—
Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust?
_________________

Surely smart critics saw thru his façade—
Capote’s whole Non-Fiction Novel fantasy?

Ending up writing about it as if his life—
depended on it (because, in fact, it did)?

OUT THERE 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=Unmsm95e5vk&NR=1 

Is there any way of possibly—
describing the High Plains out there?

There’s no way of describing it—
CAPOTE wasn't ready for it at all
__________________

The bleakness, the lonely starkness—
IN COLD BLOOD a living Nightmare

SANTA FE track straight thru town—
some tall white Grecian grain elevators
________________

They called it OUT THERE—
and there’s a reason why they did

Between Kansas and Colorado—
there’s nothing but a vast Nothingness
_________________

Not that that bothers anybody living—
out there on the surface of the Moon

The sky looks down on mere humanity—
just like it did on the stoic Indians 
________________

Endless fields of golden wheat fields—
out there where the horizon never ended

Did Holcomb or Garden City—
really even exist in that terrible Void?
____________

The sky looms high overhead—
did it really care for anything down there?

OUT THERE was faraway from anything—
It was where NOTHINGNESS ruled
_________________

It’s hard to comprehend sheer Nothingness—
especially to a Brooklyn Heights writer

And yet this is what happened, baby—
Capote brought it back to the Big Apple 

Capote & Marilyn Monroe: The Black and White Ball

THE BLACK AND WHITE BALL 

—Christopher Bram, Eminent

Outlaws: The Gay Writers

Who Changed America

The Black and White Ball—
of course, it wasn’t real

How could it exist anymore—
than IN COLD BLOOD?
_____________

Chic critics mocked the idea—
scoffed and pooh-poohed it

How could a novelist possibly—
leave himself out of his novel?
________________

Are we so bankrupt, they said—
so avid for decadent escape?

That we stoop to enjoy a—
NATIONAL ENQUIRER exposé?
______________

So VOGUE jaded that we must—
Ogle at HOLLYWOOD CONFIDENTIAL?

Surely IN COLD BLOOD is just —
a mere piece of schlocky gossip?
_____________

A morbid dizzy kitschy piece of—
insipidly snarky yellow journalism?

Shame on Miss Capote for her— 
wicked satire of Holcomb, Kansas
__________

Doing her stylish sophisticated—
NEW YORKER take on such a tragedy

Glorifying those two ex-con killers—
as if murder be so tres cosmopolitan
______________

Just as boring and ordinary as—
some Big Apple ho-hum homicide? 

Worming his way nefariously into—
the confidences of Perry & Hickcock
______________

Cold blooded as the two ex-cons—
so devoted to his murder melodrama

Living out there on the High Plains—
in a lonely Garden City dingy motel
____________

Harper Lee as his Fag Hag diplomat—
ingratiating himself to get the Story

Bribing his way into Lansing Prison—
schmoozing out all the juicy details?
______________

Patiently waiting for the inevitable—
Noose Party at the jerky climax?

No wonder Capote became alcoholic—
all to get on the NYTimes bestseller list
______________

Intensely knotted up in fear—
full of self-pity and survivor’s guilt?

Hardly, my dears, get real—
she couldn’t wait for them to die
________________

So she could finally become—
The Great American Proust!!!

Throwing her splendidly sordid—
Black and White Ball to celebrate!!!

Things Get Better

THINGS GET BETTER
—for Dan Savage

“You can't go 
home again” 
―Thomas Wolfe
You Can’t Go Home Again
_______________

Who wants to go back home—
back to that hellhole of losers?

They’re the biggest losers of all—
stop wasting your time even trying
_________________

Does it really get better—
like Savage says in The Stranger?

I doubt it, I doubt it seriously—
back home is just fucking hell
____________

Back home be str8t romantic love—
back home be a closet-case dream

So much for all that fuckin bullshit—
back home be just another name for exile
__________________

There’s No Escape from New York—
San Francisco or Los Angeles

No escape to Europe or some foreign land—
no home for lyricism, except yourself
___________________

Get selfish & real about it, that’s all—
back home to your own Destination

To your own youthful idea of 'freedom'—
all that’s self-sufficient about yourself
________________

Forget 'art' and 'beauty' and 'love'—
all that shit about some str8t ivory tower

Go back home to home inside yourself—
the country of the blind, deaf and dumb
_______________

Forget Fire Island and Key West—
all those gay mythological hangouts

Forget about Tennessee Williams—
Elizabeth Bishop, Miss Auden, Isherwood
____________________

They couldn’t get away from all that strife—
Anymore than you can, it’s simple

First, forget your mother and father—
you already lost them a long time ago
________________

Stop looking for peer group approval—
whoever they were can’t help you now

Save yourself lotsa time, ease the burden—
you don’t wanna go back home ever again
________________

All those old forms and systems of things—
once guilting & haunting you to death

They seemed everlasting but they’re always—
changing all the time escaping all of us
_________________

Back to the real home that’s really you—
your Great Escape into Time and Memory