Necktie Poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

The Red Necktie.

He woke up, fully dressed but minus his tie, on a lumpy hotel bed
It was a down and out sort of local, the last semi civilized place
before sleeping rough. It reeked of sadness and stank of depravity.
He switched on the TV news, during the night a woman had been
brutally strangled with a tie. His heart sank, he sweated, stabbed
by fear but he couldn’t remember a thing, total black out; yet he
vaguely remembered angry voices and someone running in a back
alley. Should he ring the TV channel and ask what colour the tie?
Or should he call the police and give himself up? His tie was green
with black dots on. There was rumbling from an old fridge in
the room, he opened it in the hope of finding a cold beer…. No beer,
but wrapped neatly around a bottle of whisky, a red silk tie.