It's French for Black

A high-heeled woman, hobbled by a skirt,
blows smoke rings, draws a circle in the dirt.
A flake of gold tobacco glistens on her lip.
Dick Hunt trembles as she shoots her silky hip.

They call it noir, but it's all shades of grey:
nothing ever happens by the light of day.
Dick always wears a coat and a bent-brimmed hat,
carries a stolen roscoe or a number-filed gat.

And it rains, or there's fog - or a sinister mist,
and someone's name turns up on a coincidental list.
Dick's buddy often dies, before the third or fourth reel
and the ending will have a minor-key, jazz-blues, expressionistic feel.

The police chief's a palooka, or just on the take,
the dames are all spinsters, or b-girls on the make,
the guys are ex-boxers with knuckles in their pockets
and it's fulla dire cliché, or exotic semiotics

But it's still got something, an attraction not yet gone,
everybody's tried it, even Pynchon.