(Leaf 39) – Senryu (or, witty tom-foolery)
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| Peter Falk as Lieutenant Columbo (1971-2003) |
The serendipity of life sometimes seems to conform to a cliché, doesn’t it? – It can be uncanny. I can understand how some people might not believe the following poem is based on an actual incident which really happened to my wife and me, but it genuinely did – which made it all the more amusing to us. It was too good not to note down in a poem of some sort. But in terms of structure, this one is a little bit unusual. I suppose it is more of a kyōka perhaps, given its four-line arrangement, despite the fourth line being so short and all – (technically, I suppose it should really be five lines), but in spirit, I think it is certainly more like a senryu. I’m not too fussed about terms. This poem’s layout is focussed more on conveying feeling through the double caesura (long, then short) used in the final reveal, much like the spirit of the TV show itself – the true joy of which lies in enjoying the cliché for what it is, the pure enjoyment of realising the inevitable. Oh, and there’s just one more thing … my wife’s not really a fan of Columbo, but she records the re-runs for me whenever they’re on, because she knows I’m very fond of them. So I guess that maybe adds something extra to the serendipity of this particular poem.
Just as we begin,
watching an episode of Columbo
– our old TV, suddenly
dies ...
