Maigret

Commissaire of the Paris Brigade Criminelle George Simenon’s French detective Was as much the stuff of my teenage years As the Beatles, Kennedy, minis. I loved his pipe, the exotic sounds of his tipples Pastis, Armagnac, Cognac, Calvados, Pernod, His trademark raincoat, his laconic style In a battle of nerves he’d climb into a man’s head Going to any lengths to track down killers Maigret was rarely mystified In the shadow of a courtyard, the beach or a boulevard In Montmartre, in the Inn of the Drowned Men In the Rue Pigalle, Bayeux, or Étoile du Nord He’d sleuth them down, the criminals, biding his time A man of scruples, meticulous He mixed in circles that coloured the celibate evenings Of Scottish puberty, jostling with fortune tellers Cadavers, the madman of Bergerac, Bums, pickpockets and strippers Lovers, informers, wine merchants The most obstinate man in Paris I lived a kind of half-life dogging his steps Looking in through the open window of Simenon’s art.