Swift Nick and Co.

Swift Nick and canting crew on another gallant foray,
piled in his motor - six dressed-up-for-the-soiree,
tricorn-jostling, masked roves. Sky's already starry
south of Hammersmith, wind's a demon, moon looks hoary.
No bandog's gunna bone them tonight - no, sirree.
Takes more than a rum bite to catch this quarry!
Still, thinks arch-rogue Nick, better safe than sorry.
So better put some distance between any adversary
and us, or else the morning drop might stand in for the glory,
or rather, give us one (he knows the morbid story
of scragged men shooting their last splash of bloke-purée
the moment that they go) - way to memento mori!

Riding shotgun, Jon Fox, whose charm is pure curare,
winning over, when need be, the most foul-tempered jury,
a natural at Vincent's law whose fams move in a flurry
to unpack bodices or cloy the keys to someone's brewery.
He's rooting in the glove compartment for some Smiths or R.E.
M. Scar-sporting Blackavar sits fidgeting with worry.
Blackavar, the human early warning system, wary
when it counts, ears alert to every car and lorry
a mile around, the lay apparent to him in a query
of wind. Squeezed in, Ms. Spitfire Ginger huffs. (Indignitary!)
Hardest, hardiest of them, blunt-hungriest, most sweary,
russet-headed, nips that'd survive a crematory.
Not a bat, but nor the kind a gentleman should marry.

By one window, Kes the Knave stares like he's on safari -
the soonest knifer, keen of eye and always predatory,
prone to making rash mistakes which he is quick to bury.
His hang-gallows look is known from here to Londonderry.
Tarka the Devil, though caged as a canary
in the car, is relaxed as any boy-besotted Tory.
He's famous for escaping from the old constabulary
by swimming seven miles up a North Thames estuary.
Each of them is, in their own way, ready, lively, merry
to bite the blow - a crew of villains to be proud of - very.
But Swift Nick is watching, with a heart full of fury,
their lives go past in symbols on the left, dim and blurry:
Fulham park, Fulham school, then Fulham cemetery.