All the Genteel Killers

[heslopian]

There is something so intense and pure
about a US crime novel.
Dealers, dames, drenched raincoats,
a wayward hero drinking scotch
as the boffins carve the corpse.
Something so unpretentious,
removed from pink morality.

Once the English summers died
and all the genteel killers left
in paddy wagons down the lanes,
I closed my Christie's, Allingham's,
and sought out Raymond Chandler.

This vision of a world defined
by hungry greed and violence,
righted only by the hand
of an alcoholic cop,
a non-committal private dick,
holds the comfort of escape,
and the soul of realness.