MiPo Magazine David Trinidad

The Ballad of Truman and Lee
by David Trinidad

Capote worshiped the ladies
     Of high society.
He loved to lunch at La Côte Basque
     And gossip girlishly.

Among his fluttering white swans,
     Whom Tru thought heaven-sent,
Was sister of the widow of
     The sainted president.

Truman aspired to personate
     Mythic Pygmalion.
Here was fresh clay from which he'd mold
     His greatest creation.

Though Lee was chic and married to
     A former Polish prince,
Her older sister Jackie's fame
     Had always made her wince.

"I love everything about Lee,"
     Effused the smitten scribe.
"Princess Dear," he dubbed her, "Well,
     She's easily described.

She's a beauty. Inside. Outside."
     This in Vogue magazine.
Mighty Capote would transform
     His Princess into Queen.

He'd turn her into an actress ^__
     A star bright as Monroe.
He booked her first engagement at
     Chicago's Ivanhoe.

Light comedy was chosen for
     Galatea's send-off ^__
The Philadelphia Story ^__
     Though Lee preferred Chekhov.

Searching for something to commend
     Chicago Sun-Times chimed
It was a miracle that she
     Remembered all her lines.

Pygmalion ignored the press,
     Rashly arranged for Lee
To star in a two-hour special
     On prime time ABC.

When the bland remake of Laura,
     A classic mystery,
Aired in early sixty-eight, Lee's
     "Career" was history.

Much of her "acting" had been left
     On the cutting-room floor.
The verdict was unanimous:
     Tru's beauty was a bore.

Playing God he had succeeded
     Only in being cruel.
Unwittingly he'd made her a
    Figure of ridicule.

Years later Lee would find herself
     In the middle of a feud ^__
Truman slandered Gore in Playboy,
     So Vidal promptly sued.

"Princess Dear," source of the gossip,
     Denied complicity:
"I don't recall discussing this
     With Mister Capote."

Truman was devastated by
     Lee's stabbing in the back.
To learn why she betrayed him he
     Turned to a loyal hack.

"Truman rode my coattails to fame,"
     Lee to Liz Smith would brag,
"And what difference does it make?
     They're just a couple of fags."

Capote tried to get even
     Dissing her on TV.
But bitchiness could not conceal
     His deep hurt over Lee.

Drinking/drugging the pain away,
     Tru died on the West Coast.
As the ancient Greek poet says,
     Friends will hurt you the most.

Miss D. Smokes

She gave her Baby Jane cackle, then quieted down, leaned forward, and
lighted an unfiltered Philip Morris cigarette by striking a kitchen match
     under the table.

She snubbed out her cigarette, rose, and paced back and forth, then
stopped in front of me, cleaned my ashtray, and squinted her eyes.

She snubbed out her cigarette.
She puffed for a long moment.

She lighted a cigarette, striking the match under the table again, then
     went on earnestly, without a trace of bitterness.
Over another scotch Miss D. lit another Philip Morris.

She fiddled with the cigarette.
She lighted another Philip Morris.

She waved a cigarette.
She lighted a cigarette.

She lighted a cigarette and blew the smoke to the ceiling.
She hurriedly lighted a cigarette, eager to explain.

She was trying to cut down on smoking and snubbed out her cigarette in
     a large tray.
Bette rolled her eyes to the ceiling and reached for a cigarette.

She lighted a Philip Morris from a pale blue Bic that matched her dress.
She had given up kitchen matches when one had flipped out of her
     hand and caught a sofa pillow on fire.

She lighted up, then laughed.

David Trinidad's most recent book, Phoebe 2002: An Essay in Verse, a mock-epic based on the 1950 film All About Eve, co-written with Jeffery Conway and Lynn Crosbie, is forthcoming this fall from Turtle Point Press. His other books include Plasticville (Turtle Point, 2000), Answer Song (High Risk Books, 1994), Hand Over Heart: Poems 1981-1988 (Amethyst Press, 1991), and Pavane (Sherwood Press, 1981). His poems have appeared in such magazines as The American Poetry Review, Harper's, The Paris Review and New American Writing, and have been included in numerous anthologies, including Up Late: American Poetry Since 1970, High Risk: An Anthology of Forbidden Writings, The Best American Poetry 1991 (edited by Mark Strand), Postmodern American Poetry: A Norton Anthology, and The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry. He edited Powerless, the selected poems of Tim Dlugos, and with Maxine Scates, Holding Our Own: The Selected Poems of Ann Stanford. In 2002 he moved from New York City to teach poetry at Columbia College in Chicago.

digital rendering of truman capote by d. menendez

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