Blacksmithing poems

[ausfire]

OK, little blacksmith, for what it's worth, here's a poem I wrote some time ago. You will understand most of it, although remember, it's written for an Australian reader. I wrote it when I was cranky about things that break. We have a wonderful old wool wagon in our museum and I was admiring the blacksmith made wrought iron hooks and chains.

The Bullock Wagon’s Lament

 

Iron chains are strong and trusted and the hooks have barely rusted,

This old wagon’s stood the test of time a century or more.

And in my imagination, I can feel great admiration

For the long-gone souls who made it back in 1894.

 

For the hook is clearly dated, and the maker’s name is stated,

They are stamped there in the metal with initials and a crest,

And beneath is an inscription, I will give a short transcription,

Just three words in bolded letters saying, ‘Genuine and Best’.

 

They were legends those old fellows, the good blacksmith by his bellows,

And the drover in his moleskins, with his greenhide whip in hand.

I would really like to meet them, with a grimy handshake greet them,

For ‘twas hardy pioneers like these who opened up this land.

 

In his blacksmith shop it’s poky and the atmosphere is smoky, 

From the hiss of tempered metal as he quenches it in oil.

I can hear the bellows blowing and the red hot steel is glowing;

Here’s a man who knows the meaning of a long and hard day’s toil. 

 

His stone forge is at the ready and his hammer blows are steady

As he works around the anvil and the metal starts to bend.

I can see his hammer strike it, and I think he’d sort of like it,

Just to know that what he’s making will outlive him in the end.

 

And he would not trade his hammer for today’s incessant clamour;

A consumer-led society - the way things are today.

Cheap and nasty’s how you make it, and it won’t take long to break it,

And there’s no way you can fix it so it just gets thrown away.

 

And to serve today’s consumer, he would need a sense of humour,

For he hasn’t heard of EFTPOS and you cannot buy on line.

He would think it rather funny that we do not pay with money,

You just swipe your piece of plastic, you can pay another time.

 

He would find that quite amusing, if it wasn’t so confusing,

‘Cause he hasn’t got a website or a fancy mobile phone.

And his premises are humble, but he’s not the one to grumble,

He just gets on with the job at hand and does it on his own.

 

That old blacksmith forge is burning, and it stirs in me a yearning

To go back when things were simpler as this honest tradesman knows.

Let us hear that anvil ringing, as his skilful hammer’s swinging,

Making items that are lasting with a quality that shows.

 

I will look with admiration at the blacksmith’s fine creation

This majestic bullock wagon with its irons tried and true,

Cos he built it in a fashion that reveals he had a passion

For the finest Aussie workmanship – the best that he could do.

 

I think nothing could be finer than to ditch the stuff from China,

‘Cause I’m sure we have the skills to make the things we need right here.

Are we such a dismal failure, we can’t make it in Australia,

Or perhaps it’s that our labour costs are really much too dear?

 

Well I should not be complaining, but I think it needs explaining,

Why our industries can’t match it with the blacksmith of the past.

So live up to expectation, let him be your inspiration,

And return to making products that we know are going to last! 

 

------------ooOoo-------------

 

 

[Tubalcain2]

bravo! you should write a blacksmithing SONG next.

[Mark Ling]

Very nice ausfire!

speaking of blacksmithing songs,     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVgkUPXGGSI

                                                                                                                                   Littleblacksmith

[Tubalcain2]

LB, think i think that's my new favorite song!

[ausfire]

7 hours ago, Tubalcain2 said:

bravo! you should write a blacksmithing SONG next.

Sung to the ring of an anvil no doubt.

[Mark Ling]

Ok, here it is, and I'm telling you now, I aint a poet! it was an English assignment, soooo....

Hands

By: Mark Ling (me)

Too many people don't know the feeling you get from working with your hands

Won't know

Can't know

will never get them dirty

will never do anything more than

type

text

and feed themselves

will never feel the joy using a draw knife in fresh cut cedar

Will never hear the beautiful song created at the anvil

the feel of hot steel under the hammer

Unforgettable

Will never have memories of helping fix moms car

or working with dad to fix the barb wire fence

will never know the satisfaction you get after eating

a meal cooked over a wood fire

the wood split with the axe you made

the Dutch oven hanging on a hand forged tripod

eating the food you just killed and cleaned

unforgettable

people say my hands are dirty

disgusting

unclean

scarred

I tell them they are a book

a book that tells a story

a story of hard work

 a story of dedication

a story of passion

a story of the times when sweat was pouring off of you

 and you kept going even though others said it was impossible

The callouses from swinging a hammer

swinging an axe

making hand drill fires

a story

a story that's unforgettable.

 

 

                                                                                                                   

 

 

 

 

 

[JHCC]

Well done. 

[Mark Ling]

Wow, well thank you very much, I didn't think It would get much of a positive comment at all, as I didn't think it was all that good. Thanks!

                                                                                                            Littleblacksmith

[C-1ToolSteel]

Good job! Just make sure your English teacher knows what an anvil is.

[Lou L]

46 minutes ago, C-1ToolSteel said:

Good job! Just make sure your English teacher knows what an anvil is.

I'm an English teacher....  +1 for Nerds.

[C-1ToolSteel]

I guess you could call me an English teacher if you're talking about English  anvils. Who ever said it had to mean English talkin'?

[Lou L]

This is how English teachers blacksmith....with Shakespeare:

 

Macbeth:

Is this a hammer which I see before me,

The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.

I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.

Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible

To feeling as to sight? or art thou but

A hammer of the mind, a false creation,

Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?

 

Hamlet:

To smith, or not to smith, that is the question:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous stock reduction,

Or to take arms against a sea of newbies

And by opposing end them. To smith —to sleep,

No more; and by a sleep to say we end

The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks

That my anvil is heir to: 'tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wish'd.

[MrDarkNebulah]

25 minutes ago, Lou L said:

This is how English teachers blacksmith....with Shakespeare:

 

Macbeth:

Is this a hammer which I see before me,

The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.

I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.

Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible

To feeling as to sight? or art thou but

A hammer of the mind, a false creation,

Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?

 

Hamlet:

To smith, or not to smith, that is the question:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous stock reduction,

Or to take arms against a sea of newbies

And by opposing end them. To smith —to sleep,

No more; and by a sleep to say we end

The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks

That my anvil is heir to: 'tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wish'd.

 

Ive got to say that seems like a bit of a misquote... But I like it better your way.

[Frosty]

Twas swinging in the smithy's trove

Did gyre and gimbal on the U joint

Pure wimsy was the borrowed scroll

And pound flatter flouts Gabe.

Beware the blackheat my son

The edge that bites, the scale that burns

 

[ThomasPowers]

and shun the plated stock!

[Frosty]

Good one!

Something glitched and posted it way before I was finished but the text window was active so I didn't notice. Happily I saved to Word so here's my "finished sort of" (like it ever will be) poetic forgery.

  Twas thrilling in the smithy's trove

Did gyre and gimbal on U joint

Pure wimsy was the borrowed scroll

And pounding flatter flouts not Gabe.

      Beware the blackheat my son

The edge that bites, the scale that burns

    Beware the flatdumb words and shun

furious curmudgeons good natured cranky ire

    He took his vorpal drift in hand

Long time the drift hewed the slit

            So rang the ring ting clang

And stood awhile, till hot

And there in dusty smoke he stood

The black iron and blue flame abides

Came swiftling to a yellow good.

But that burner's huffing just the same!

One two! One two! And through and through

The vorpal drift went with smackety SMACK!

Punched and drifted dead, true and with hammer head

Galumphed the handle and wedge.

Just for you.

Frosty The Lucky.

[Lou L]

Frosty, 

What steel do you use and how do you quench and temper it in order to make vorpal tools?

Love your version, BTW, and I think you should title it "Jabbersmithy".

[JHCC]

22 hours ago, Lou L said:

This is how English teachers blacksmith....with Shakespeare:

I saw a smith stand with his hammer, thus,
The whilst his iron did on the anvil cool,
With open mouth swallowing a tailor's news

King John, Act IV, scene 2

[Lou L]

18 minutes ago, JHCC said:

I saw a smith stand with his hammer, thus,
The whilst his iron did on the anvil cool,
With open mouth swallowing a tailor's news

King John, Act IV, scene 2

I have never read that one.  It just didn't call to me...or to any of my teachers it would seem.  I went with stuff I knew offhand that I could manipulate a little.  I guess I have to read that one now.  Did you realize you were assigning homework when you posted this?

[JHCC]

1 hour ago, Lou L said:

Did you realize you were assigning homework when you posted this?

I merely evoke possibilities and leave it to others to follow their own inspiration. 

[CTBlades]

I never knew a hammer in hand could forge out so many beautiful words....awesome stuff guys!

[Frosty]

I thought of calling it the Jabbersmithy Lou but figured folk would think I was writing about myself and the Jabberwhacky sort of lead to the same impression. I learned early that trying to learn the secrets of Vorpal tools required a beamish ploy beyond my humble gile.

Truth is Ray, poetry is just a socially acceptable form of punning.

Frosty The Lucky.

[Nobody Special]

One I wrote a few months ago. You get an ungodly amount of time sitting in the siding working on the trains and reading is against the rules. (except for the rulebooks) Writing though...

 

What is an anvil, that we are so mindful of it?

It toils not, neither does it spin.

Its only job to stand, to resist, to endure,

And to meet each strike undaunted,

“By hammer and hand, all works do stand.”

No praises sung, nor wanted.

 

Conceived in fire, it takes what each smith gives,

Starting life the way that we do,

The first touch to greet us at birth, a blow.

To prepare us for all the ones to follow.

But when hammer and hand and works wear out, grow still,

The anvil does not follow.

 

What’s old is useless, as all men say,

(Ask Ulysses, he knew rust to be a sin),

And so they must find new life you see,

As tractor weights, as antiques, and failing all else,

As rail or rod or sheet steel, or the weapon of cartoon rabbits.

Or rest half buried and forgotten,

It soon becomes a habit.

 

No anvil in myth ever brought luck to the smith.

Dwarves robbed, Wayland and mighty Vulcan lame, and wearing cuckold’s horns,

I hear even Sauron came to a bad end,

Though tell the truth he was a jeweler.

The Hittite was known for ironwork,

Where are those fallen rulers?

 

Say not as iron sharpens iron,

Whose idea that? I use a stone.

But as iron shapes iron and tool makes tool, makes tool,

The world makes us all, man and woman,

And we shape each other by strength, and shape, and endurance,

And sheer persistence of being, each according to our own ends.

Else what’s an anvil for?

[JHCC]

26 minutes ago, Nobody Special said:

One I wrote a few months ago.

That's a good one, NS. Many thanks.

[ausfire]

Great sentiments there. Verse 2 is special.