Ode to a Socket Wrench

Posted by Dave Bonta on April 4, 2008 (last modified at 10:45 am, 4/21/08)
This entry is part 1 of 29 in the series Odes to Tools

wrench set

Better than all power tools
is the socket wrench:

its accommodating nature
its chrome-plated steel
its handling of torque.

It can make a complete revolution
from the smallest arc

& as if time could turn
in either direction
with the click of a lever

the past screwed down
the future loose

a spring-loaded finger
clicks against
the gearwheel’s teeth.


Series NavigationOde to a Claw Hammer»
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11 Responses to Ode to a Socket Wrench

  1. dale says:
    April 5, 2008 at 1:23 am

    I love this.

    Reply
  2. sarah b says:
    April 5, 2008 at 9:02 am

    How delightful. I love how it does not hit you over the head, such as a hammer might do.

    Reply
  3. Jo says:
    April 5, 2008 at 10:14 am

    You’ve turned something utilitarian into something even I can admire, nice one!

    Reply
  4. Joan says:
    April 5, 2008 at 10:53 am

    I don’t know how you do it, Dave. but I’m sure glad you do. I really relate to this one. First of all it’s a tool I have actually used, but also as a metaphor for life, it’s lovely. With this tool, we have some hands on control, we still have to consider the past, and we can take little clicky baby steps into the future. Contrast this with a power wrench which bullies its way blindly into the future, shredding the threads of the past and oft times locking a “tire’ into a state where it can never get free.

    Reply
  5. Joe Hyam says:
    April 5, 2008 at 11:38 am

    Not a word too many. Full of grace. “The past screwed down /the future loose.” Yes.

    Reply
  6. leslee says:
    April 5, 2008 at 8:12 pm

    Yes, very nice cadence to this. (Which makes me think of cycling, and thus bicycle wrenches…) Spare. Torqued to precision. :-)

    Reply
  7. Dave says:
    April 6, 2008 at 12:25 am

    Hey, thanks for the kind words, y’all.

    sarah b – Now you have me thinking I should try an ode to a hammer, too.

    Joan – I can’t help feeling that you’ve understood this poem better than I understand it myself. I’m not sure where some of these posts have been coming from, lately: I’m experimenting with a new technique of writing late at night, when I’m utterly exhausted, and I have to focus hard on every word. For years I’ve done my best writing first thing in the morning, so this represents a 180° switch — a tightening instead of a loosening, I think.

    leslee – Thanks. The cadence is always very important to me.

    Reply
  8. sarah b says:
    April 6, 2008 at 8:02 am

    Consider an entire toolbox of poems. Just being able to write the words “vice grips” brings tears to my eyes.

    Reply
  9. SB says:
    April 6, 2008 at 6:50 pm

    Ah, and you do it all in form — 2,3,2,3… — I love this. Elegant. Like the tool.

    Reply
  10. Jarrett says:
    April 7, 2008 at 3:49 am

    Very nice.

    I like the pic of the socket wrench set next to your feet. Most socket wrenchers find it easier to use their hands. ;)

    Reply
  11. Dave says:
    April 7, 2008 at 12:13 pm

    sarah b – Shhh! You’ll hex it. I’m strictly a one-poem-at-a-time kind of guy.

    SB – Thanks. Well, I didn’t intend to write it in any form, but that’s the shape it assumed.

    Jarrett – It depends entirely on what you’re going to use them for.

    Reply

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