Choke Collar Round

Critique or advice? Or praise? (Ooh, I like that last one.) Remember, this is only the first half or so.

What is the mark of a civilized man?

Is it when he dresses himself up in rich paper clothes
Drinking hot tea, served over butter-knifed “so’s”?
Sparing dry time to clean his trim fingernails
Spending his days to pave future trails?
To shave and clean and shield the face
Drawing silk curtains against the rest of the race?

That he commits his crimes with pen instead of hand
His sins barked, not relented to command?
As a child he was choked by a schoolboy’s still collar?
Turning his nose from the screams and the squalor.
Is this what earns him the right to a fan?
Does this declare him the better man?

Does it only lie behind a scholar’s round, leering eyeglass?
Unwrinkled clothes? Boyish combed hair? Top of the class?