Iron Honing Iron
L'épée est l'axe du monde
Iron honing iron Hammer striking true The claymore that claimed kingdoms once At last is forged anew
Its blade grows supple; long; precise No longer sweeping fields A thinner sword for thinner men With steady hands to wield Its work is cleaner now by far Fells arteries—not pikes Like clockwork it clears corridors Where broadswords lose the fight To win a throne is one thing, see But that work's done and gone The rapier needs no storm to win Just patience, carried on Iron honing iron Anvil black as night... A whisper doesn't need a mouth A shadow has no name And steel bent small and soft enough Is oft assailed by veins The hilt feels flimsy in your grasp Less so in dainty hands! Doles entry wounds like papercuts Whose sting none understand For all of life's cuts most severe Slice subtler than a blade That violet splotch blooms weeks from now Stiletto long mislaid Iron honing iron Bellows scream and hiss... The gathered crowd falls silent Eye the twice-crowned swan like meat She's turned round slow so all can see A gasp—she feels the heat! The steel runs through her center clean The flames do all the rest A public thing, a turning thing— The audience knows best! She learned that day what all flesh learns When fire finds it true: That spectacle craves subjects And on spits, they get run through Iron honing iron Tongs squeak, caked in rust... The Giving Tree lends vine and seed And branch for heart-to-heart The poor lad's fingers start to itch So eager from the start He did then merely what he'd seen No more and nothing new It's nothing personal, he said... And probably that's true! He'd learned the grip, he'd learned the arc He'd practiced for a year The hatchet knows one motion well And executes it clear Iron honing iron Crossbeam finds its joint... What swings in winter tells the town Far more than heralds could The final scraps of claymore Joined at last to Giving wood Most structures speak in present tense The rusty ones in past And while it's future tense persists Subjunctive mood's top caste Come close and see the wherefore, then Twixt iron, rot, and sky The claymore cleaved realms open once The gibbet asks you why