Somebody might express an intention
To bring the ruffians to order
To cause them to lower eyes afire with intensity
Though method for this fool’s errand does not forthcome
Toward tough guys who enjoy reputations for clothing of hide
For compact weapons of filigree
Customs arcane as their elaborate facial adornments
Their fashionably barbaric markings of the skin
Their impossibly advanced tonsorial achievements
Which precede them with the magical exudations of an Oberon
Nay the glamor of a Lucifer
And they claim not without precedent
For theirs is no newfangled efflorescence
To proceed through the world according to their own lights
Assigning to themselves the winners the right to appoint
The obligatory the permissible and the prohibited
Inscribed in their extensive and abstruse code of comportment
Their shibboleths and esoteric gestures
Calculated to mystify the uninitiated
Though never would nor could they proselytize
To stir envy in the hearts of the conventional
For the unimaginable grace of such sophistication
Product of a lifetime of study and discipleship
Unmistakable token of election
Which grants the facility to assuage all awkwardness
Toward their noblesse
And to foster the cult of display
For nothing is so powerful as the image of power
Nothing so rich as the exhibition of wealth