The Hammer's Convention

copyright © 2001 by Edward L. Stauff, all rights reserved
(for George Frederick Rowan Stauff)

Now, don't be up working too late with your tools,
Some are getting impatient, you know,
For as soon as us humans are out of their sight
And the lights are turned off and the doors locked up tight,
The hammers will disappear into the night:
To the hammer's convention they'll go.

There'll be more kinds of hammers than you could believe
Converging upon Granger's hall.
There's a pneumatic hammer that's used to drill wells,
A brass one that's used to play tubular bells,
And a few cheap tack-hammers the five-and-dime sells,
And a huge antique cracked wooden maul.

There are small ball-peen hammers and sledgehammers too,
Boasting of how much they weigh.
There's a wrench that for so many years had been used
To drive nails that it now had become so confused
It thought it was a hammer, a thing that bemused
The real hammers, who allow it to stay.

While fat rubber mallets set up for the feast
Their big guest of honor will speak.
A mahogany gavel with inlays of gold
Will first give a short introduction: "Behold!
I give you Mjolnir! Thor's hammer of old!"
Within minutes, he puts them to sleep.

At the banquet they'll serve the best imported spikes
With staples and brads for dessert.
After dinner a fine hammered dulcimer plays
Verdi's Chorus of Anvils, some rags, and some lays
While the mallets all dance in most outlandish ways
And the claw-hammers all start to flirt.

Then when morning draws nigh they must all slip away
Before anyone knows that they're gone.
While the wrench stays to clean up the hall that they messed
Each hammer returns to its drawer, bench or chest
In hopes of still catching an hour of rest
Til the next workday comes with the dawn.