Two Poems
David Stephenson
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Tack Hammer
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It was my dad’s, from way back when;
some thin rod bent into a “U”
with a flared claw on one end
serves as a handle, welded to
a saw-cut piece of thicker rod
shaped with a file, which forms the head;
he must have made it on the job
at the old rail yard repair shed.
He gave it to me when I went
to college, with some more tools in
a hip-roofed box. It’s rusted, bent,
objectively ugly as sin,
and yet shines blindingly to me
with beauty only I can see.
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First published in The Lyric, Summer 2024
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​David’s notes: “I went to college in Boston, and would drive back and forth from my home in Illinois. At the time I had a 1968 Plymouth Valiant with a 225 slant six engine, which broke down regularly. I always carried tools in the trunk, but I didn’t have nearly as many as my dad, who had a vast collection including many duplicates. Before I left for school one year he gave a toolbox full of wrenches and pliers, plus a tack hammer that I’m pretty sure he’d made years earlier, when he worked for the Rock Island railroad. I wondered at the time why he threw it in, but it's actually really handy for a lot of tasks. I still use it to pound in screw anchors when I’m hanging pictures, and think of him every time I do.“
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Psalm of David
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If you are a little boy
named David on a farm,
there is no better reading than
the sweet, blood-spattered yarn
of your namesake, the shepherd boy
with staff and stones and sling
who killed the giant braggart and
grew up to be a king.
If you skip the religious parts
what’s left is super cool,
the only fun thing ever at
the Methodist Sunday School.
But later, reading further on,
assuming there would be
more action, I was shocked to find
that he wrote poetry,
whole pages of it, all church-themed.
The guy broke into song.
Across the centuries between
I wondered what went wrong.
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First published in Blue Unicorn, Fall 2024
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​David’s notes: “This poem, which can be sung to the tune of ’The Yellow Rose of Texas,’ is based on childhood memories. My paternal grandfather was a farmer, and until I was six, we lived in a farmhouse on one of his farms. Getting dressed up and going to church was the big social activity out there, so my brothers and I ended up regularly attending the Sunday School in the basement of the United Methodist church. One Sunday they had a lesson about David and Goliath, and it was pointed out that I was named after David. I was vaguely aware of the story, but they went into the details, and I remember wondering what a sling was, and where I could get one. We later moved to a larger town, and went to the Baptist church. We read the Psalms in Sunday School there, including psalms of David, and I remember thinking that writing poetry was a big step down from what he’d done before.“
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David Stephenson is a retired manufacturing engineer from Detroit, and the editor of Pulsebeat Poetry Journal. His most recent collection is Wall of Sound (Kelsay Books, 2022).
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Melissa l Mike l Martin l John l Steven l Susan l Gail l Word-Bird
