Ironbound Genealogy (version 2)

Intro

Rust on the ledger, salt in the hinge of the door

Ironbound docks still hum where my blood came ashore

Every name in this family got forged, not just born

Verse

Great-granddad swung the hammer where the anchor chains bend

Thirty links a shift, hands raw from the trend

Foreman marked the tally with a chisel on tin

One notch for the debt, one notch for the kin

He never learned to read but he could read the burn

Knew the color of the metal when it's ready to turn

Stamped his initials deep where the iron folds twice

Said a name in the steel don't melt away with the ice

Buried in the yard where the barges used to dock

Left a coat full of soot and a family full of stock

We inherited the weight before we learned to walk

Counted generations by the links, not the clock

Mama kept his tools wrapped in an oil-stained sheet

Told me every chain he made still holds somewhere at sea

Said the harbor remembers what the water tried to steal

Every ship that made it home wore a name that we forged in steel

Hook

Same fire, same forge, different hands on the hammer

Every link we strike wears a name that don't stammer

Ironbound blood, we don't break, we get longer

Chain don't snap when the roots get stronger

Verse

Now the docks are condos, the furnace boarded shut

I run a crane downtown, still hauling iron and rust

Same district, different century, same debt to repay

Steel beams instead of anchors, but the weight's the same weight

I clock in at five, watch the skyline catch fire

Copper light on the girders like my great-granddad's pyre

They tore down the forge but the river kept the ledger

The names in the mud are older than any measure

I bring my son to the water, show him where it began

Tell him every scar on my palm is a plan, not a sentence

He asks why we stayed when the whole block left

I tell him roots don't run, son, roots just get deeper set

Every generation adds a link to the chain

Some rust, some hold, some carry the strain

But the ones who forged before us made sure we'd remain

Ironbound in the blood, Ironbound in the name

Hook

Same fire, same forge, different hands on the hammer

Every link we strike wears a name that don't stammer

Ironbound blood, we don't break, we get longer

Chain don't snap when the roots get stronger

Bridge

Found the old ledger buried under the floor

Names I never heard of, debts settled before

Every notch a winter that somebody survived

Turns out legend's just a family that stayed alive

Outro

Salt in the hinge, rust on the door

Same iron, same blood, just a different shore

We don't break, we link

We don't break, we link