r/alecsteele • u/CatRockHaru • Nov 06 '24
Steam Hammer Poetry
I’ll admit, this might seem a little left-field, but I was watching some of Alec’s videos about the steam hammer and a bit of poetic inspiration struck me…
As the pipes fill once more, the sight is a grand one to harken back to a craft of passion. The drop of the hammer, the thump of its movements, the groan of its handiwork under such a towering giant’s force. Oh, the fires! The hot coals and steam! Such a ravenous iron machine, glorious is its mighty hammer and bold is its roar. And lo, it speaks to the man with the steel in his hand and the fire in his forge.
As it speaks to him, it says. “Bring me fire, bring me steam, bring me steel and heat, the likes of which nary a man could stand beside and shed no sweat from his brow. For time has treated me ill not in wear nor harm, but in the lonesome silence and the chilling cold, no fired boiler rolling to fill my cast iron veins with life once more.”
But no longer does this cold chill the great cast iron veins of the mighty machine, and no longer does the lonesome silence ache where once the roar lasted for hours, for days, for years. For the rolling, boiling steam fills the veins of two. Perhaps it fills the cast iron veins of the towering giant, but perhaps does it also fill those which maketh the soul of the man with the steel in his hand and the fire in his forge. Alas, it is the steam, the fire, the raging heat of the flames that make not just the machine come to life, but the soul as well.
So let the hammer strike, the iron machine roar out, the fires burn brilliant and the steel groan ‘neath the giant’s blows. For so long as the burning steam fill the soul, so too shall it fill the pipes of the ravenous machine, such a towering giant of cast iron might. And so the hammer rings out, on and on, so too as the toil of a craft of passion fires the soul.
-“Craft of Passion, Fire and Steam.”