A metal full of mystery,
close to magic and witchery.
Silvery shiny often mistaken,
from the finders thought foresaken.

A stinky kobold ore,
from silver eating feys and more,
A full rainbow of colourful compounds,
another koboldish trickery in mining grounds.

The best change to find cobalt,
is as impurity in copper salt,
this is why from the kongo copper belt,
most of the cobalt is dealt.

It is toxic and unhealty as metal and oxide,
in our lungs it prefers to hide.
As long as you don’t eat or inhale it,
its quite fine, I have to admit

As metal and alloy, high heat and corrosion resistance,
there it finds against steel a right for existence.
You can simply alloy it to high speed steel though,
it will as well increased stability show.

Some cobalt alloys are used in surgery,
hip and knee replacement in modern chirurgy,
It is part of the green energy revolution,
either as battery or catalyst against carbon pollution.

In lithium ion battery as cathodic material,
cellphones, electric cars, the success is real,
Pure cobalt is outmost critical for machining and drilling,
in cemented carbides it is used as metal binder filling.

Therefore it gets high hardness combined with toughness,
in terms of post processing a world success.
Cobalt is as well used as pigment,
in porcellaine quite ancient.

The deep blue colour in ancient chinese ceramic,
cobalt does the trick.
Are there some old cassette tapes in your shelf,
and you asked probably youself,

what is this black magnetic band,
independent of the music and the brand.
Cobalt steel in every tape,
vintage style, unique shape.

Cobalt is part of various magnet applications,
with nickel and aluminium variations.
For magnetic resonance and electric engines,
for green cars cobalt is important it seems.

The human body needs cobalt in one vitamin,
in B twelve the only place in humans naturally seen.
Cattle and sheep need it more to stay vital,
in emergencies cobalt oxide is applied oral.

So cobalt was thought to be a kobold trick,
it’s still dangerous and can make us truely sick.
Handled with a lot of care,
cobalt has a lot of applications to share.

In mobilephones and electric cars,
two very modern super stars.
Drilling holes is still not out of fashion,
magnets in a broad variation.

Music tapes, vintage or outdated,
still as a period of music history appreciated.
Cobalt is important, it is unique,
necessary, but not free of critique.