Brass Knuckles & Bowler Hats

Gentlemen thugs in tailored disgrace,
Polish their weapons with silk handkerchiefs,
While bowler hats tip with criminal grace,
Above the shadows of London’s grief.

Cold brass kisses across weathered hands,
Beneath the gaslights’ suspicious glow,
Where proper villains make their stands
In streets where proper folk don’t go.

The weight of class in metal rings,
The burden of style in rounded brims,
While underneath the facade clings
To violence’s darkest whims.

They tip their hats to ladies fair,
Then vanish down the cobbled night,
Where brass meets bone with savage flair,
And courtesy serves spite.

In foggy alleys, deals are made,
With perfect posture, perfect threat,
These dapper demons of the shade,
Who pay society’s debt.

Their bowlers perch like ravens black,
Above the gleam of brass below,
While somewhere in between the crack
Of civilization’s flow,

These lords of calculated pain
Keep time with pocket watches gold,
While knuckles write their dark refrain
On stories left untold.

So raise a glass to proper thugs,
Who keep their violence neat and trim,
Who wear their darkness like fine rugs,
And make brutality a hymn.

For in these streets of brick and fog,
Where manners mask the mongrel’s teeth,
The bowler hat’s a catalogue
Of what lies underneath.