Oh Block, why interlock?

If a block in an arch can budge

then it just needs a nudge

for the arch to get weak

you’ll not hear a creak

or some warning snaps

before the collapse.

So what’s to be done?

How safe’s anyone?

If the blocks in an arch interlock

they can’t move, anchored block

no unnerving fragility

the arch itself is stability.

Trust

I can’t think of a trade I’d trust

more than the trade you really must

believe in to actually do it right

trust a mason all day and night.

Anchor bricks

Bricks made of clay

have holes or recesses

to anchor the mortar.

It’s the best way

for mortar impresses

itself in the border.

A boy named Mason

He could’ve been a smith

or a sawyer or a cooper

or named for a trade with

skills so super,

he could’ve written apps,

been an Argonaut, Jason

too modest perhaps:

Mom calls him Mason.

Mason's line

If you’re laying blocks or bricks

in a straight-lined wall with mortar

there are a few quick mason’s tricks

to keep your blocks and bricks in order.

Rather than place blocks askew

you can line them up just fine

all you really have to do

is guide your bricks with mason’s line.

Vesica piscis arch

Two circles of the same size

overlap by their radius

forming a shape like your eyes

known as a vesica piscis.

Half of these almond-shaped things

creates a gothic motif

whose curved elegance brings

masonry stress some relief.

Less mass than a barrel vault

thinner walls support it

closer to a catenary, called

a “fishes bladder” distorted.

The biggest arch ever

St. Louis’ arch is quite airy

although it’s not masonary

at the top it’s kinda scary

but you needn’t be too wary

because it is a catenary.

Compassion for a rock

We take rocks for granted

unearthing them when planted

they get in the way of growing roots

and stop the plant’s precious shoots

but when we use rock for buildings

we don’t need to really kill things

like trees for wood or wool for rugs

before they're killed they get hugs

but rocks and stones on this planet

we just take them for granite.

The masonry of crystals

It’s more covalent,

less ionic

with rows prevalent

on atomic

scale of being and

such small seeing.

Less ambivalent

more ironic

when stacking meant

the sardonic

scale of bricks and

atoms’ tricks.

Faith

Watch iron rust

and see wood rot

but brick you trust

that it will not.

Parge coat

To make masonry walls like alabaster

It takes some fussing and some doting

Using a trowel, and mortar or plaster

Squeeze and press that parge coating.

Pedentive

If a masonry dome is placed on top

of a square or hexagonal or octagonal room

the dome and the room will fit lop

sided, not at  all, not now, not any time soon.

But by making the dome and the room both fit

and being creative and inventive

the mason contrives a dome that will sit

upon a contrivance called a pedentive.

Namaste

Today, Science tells us that the essence of nature is potential.

You may be ruled by stagnation without realizing it. Do not let it obliterate the richness of your myth. We can no longer afford to live with suffering. Pain is the antithesis of joy.

Reality has always been electrified with messengers whose essences are transformed into freedom. We are in the midst of a karmic awakening of transformation that will enable us to access the multiverse itself. We are at a crossroads of grace and materialism.

Deepak Chopra is not a mason, and I guess he's never laid a brick.

Masonry in nature

Nature’s masons are all around us

The turtle, the tortoise and seahorse

Thor’s Hero shrew’s spine confounds us

Radiolaria and mollusks of course

Coral and the sea anemone

With spikes so tough they do force

Surrender by the attacking enemy.

Permanence of the flying buttress

A mechanism must be in place

for an arch to collapse

in both masonry time and space

then failure will perhaps

Occur because hinges form

allowing the arch to fold

the arch’s fate is torn

before it even gets too old.

But a gothic flying buttress

has no such possible way

for arch collapse to fret us

no mechanism any day

No hinge can ever work

it simply isn’t able

for flying buttress to lurch

is the stuff of fable.

A flying buttress can only fall

from a direct lightning hit

or settling underneath it all

perfect design, sums up it.

Elevator Pitch

"Best damn block in all Jersey
Bar None!
None!"

Cutting a block

To cut a masonry block
with a mason's hammer whack it
along a predetermined line
with a mason's hammer smack it
gently first then harder
with a mason's hammer crack it.

Clean your tools

At the end of the day

your hands are beaten

a sore stiff back

there’s no cheatin’

or slacking off

important details:

the mortar left

on tools assails.

You have to clean

all your work

or mortar builds

you cannot shirk

the need to clean

is a real bit

or tools are trashed

just deal with it.

Planetary arch

Our planet’s crust

is made of plates

they move around

with seismic traits.

Through plate tectonics

it is quite clear

when they move

they conjugate shear.

An arch arranged

as truly complete

describes the sphere

beneath your feet.

Striking joints

When a mason lays down mortar

and places a block atop it

it squishes out a little bit

this mess, you gotta stop it.

Using the edge of a trowel
you slice off the excess

then you strike it with a striker

and lose the mortar’s mess.

Worth

Masonry means solidity

in this world of cheap.

Planned obsolescence

is only obscene.

Worth and merit mean so little

in this world of quarterly returns.

Stand out and make good things

anyway.

Masonry love sonnet 18

Shall I compare thee to a wooden home?

Thou art more sturdy and more sound

Rough winds don’t even shake your dome

And summer’s heat doth not confound

Sometimes too hot for standard construction

And often is this old wood blamed

And every wood would rot destruction

By chance, or nature’s course untamed

But thy eternal block shall not fade

Nor lose thy strength to mold or fungus

Nor shall one spray cans of Raid

When inside - spoils the air among us

So long as masons work and build with mortar

So long lives good building: in proper order.

A shameful plug

A mason’s design for a block

creates a shape to interlock

and assemble in a sphere

first described (yes) right here.

On this blog you saw it boy

it could be done as a toy.

Rather than be sad, remorseful

work with folks so resourceful:

high school students, good and smart

elevate the prior art.

Check it out, how they think:

just click on this nifty link - 

Why work blindly? Just work smarter

to get funding use kickstarter!

You’ll see how left and right goes

snap together the round IKOS!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/150103738/ikos-the-building-shape-with-endless-configuration

The symbolic mason's trowel, unused

At the dawn of our nuclear age

nuclear power was all the rage.

“Atoms for Peace” was the catchy phrase

ushering in those brave new days

of unlimited power, it was claimed

safer too than what remained

of nuclear weapons used in war.

Safer than what had come before:

to prove their point they made a trowel

(as if they were a foolish owl)

acting wise in their cranium

a trowel made of uranium.

A symbolic gesture meant to soothe

the fears of those it sought to prove

there would be no nuclear spike

if it’s held by President Ike.

Smarter minds at last prevailed

the uranium trowel was not unveiled.

A lune on lunes

A masonry lune
like an orange peel slice
demonstrates the dome.

Two arch sections
opposite each other support another
countering arch section.

Free body diagrams
analyze a structure's forces displayed
succinctly and easily.

Like a poem
short enough and simply written
called a lune.

A charm against masonry failure

The hardness from a hardhat,
steel from a steel-toed boot,
mixed with "caution" tape that
surrounds the problem's root.
Brewed and stewed in a cement mixer,
stirred with safety charts and maps,
this concoction's a strong elixir:
may it save your arch from collapse.

Neanderwall

The echo in a cave like the memory

of our past bounces off walls

made of stone or brick or block.

Not that long ago we sat

and ate the impala by the fire

using stones to break the bones.

Now the Impala is parked

in a garage made of block,

that baby cost a few bones

and the brakes are anti-lock.

"As hangs a flexible cable..."

It is April.  It is Poetry Month.  Not just poetry month, but National Poetry Writing Month, or NaPoWriMo! For the past three years I met a challenge posed by my friend Jennifer L. Knox, a very accomplished poet. She double-dog-dared me to write a poem about masonry every day for the month of April.  Can I do it for a fourth year?  I'm gonna try.  I write these very quickly, so I apologize in advance.  Here we go, NaPoWriMo!

"As hangs a flexible cable..."
A clash of great minds, keener than most
duelled in the seventeeth century:
Isaac Newton showed Robert Hooke's ghost
the how and why of arch masonry.

Hooke's contempt for lesser men
hinted perhaps at his own depravity
his anagram showed post mortem when
his cable was hung by Newton's gravity.