Wave hello to our On Tech editor, Hanna Ingber, who picked a few faves. Some of the hammer poems were submitted by professional writers. Thank you for all of them.

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Sadjectives

The Cold Cheeseburger of Love
slumps on the hotel night stand
next to the Flat Diet Coke of Freedom
in its Paper Cup of Ennui. The Sad Clown
of Destiny hangs on the Bent Nail of Indifference
driven into the Purple Wall of Oblivion
by the Slightly-Bent Hammer of Fecklessness.
Oh, Crispy Home Fries of Homesickness,
spilled onto the floor,
scattered beneath the
unmade bed, the
unmade bed.

— Matt Mason, Omaha, currently the Nebraska State Poet

Oh, how I love my hammer
it is such a lovely tool.

It may lack a lot in glamour
but as an implement it’s cool.

— Alan Payne, Etowah, Tenn.

Hammer

A hammer is what a man needs,
on a November splashing heatless
sunlight to and fro by noon,

like silvery Chablis
tossed among the leaves;
I love

the dim secrecy of this cellar’s cool,
the jars of nails
and nickel screw eyes,

the hammer’s iron tooth
there, in its corkboard
rest —

wood-handled, wrapped
with gripping tape
and waiting for some solid use.

It’s everything my century applauds.

Roundheaded: riven: able;
maker of rails and shingle;

now to yank, now to rend,
now, if called upon, to kill.

— William Orem, Emerson College