Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

well, you know how at the start of the programme
you actually see the killer
Committing the crime
and it’s really clever
and you know that if you’d not seen him do it
you’d never have guessed,

and you know how Colombo reaches the scene of the
                                                                                 crime
and he’s there in his mac and some smart detective
comes up and says something like
seems like a straight gangland killing to me’
and Colombo says
‘maybe, but one thing bothers me - the streetlamp
don’t tell me you never threw rocks at them when you
                                                                      was a kid?’
and then the commissioner always reckons it’s
cut and dried
and leaves it to Colombo to just tidy up the pieces
but Colombo - he’s never happy
‘a guy like that - wearing a watch like that - not with those 
                                                                                  shoes’
and before you know it he’s fidgeting around in front of
                                                                              the killer
asking questions and the killer can answer them all
really easily

Colombo turns to go but
just as he starts to disappear
he turns round and says
‘Oh, there is something else - I was forgetting
the car - the engine was cold
why was that?’
and it’s really important
and you know it’s important
and the killer knows it’s important
but he just can’t think of an answer
and he knows he really should have an answer
hut all he can say is
‘the engine was cold - so what?’
and Colombo always says ‘ah - it doesn’t matter
I just wondered - you know’
and you know Colombo knows it matters
and the killer knows Colombo knows
and he looks like he’s thinking
if only I could have answered that question

(sometimes he even rings Colombo up with an answer
but it’s never good enough -
Colombo always knows why it won’t do)

well
yesterday’s interview
was a bit like that