Selling the End of the World

• Selling the End of the World

Selling the End of the World

The city greets me like a surgery
Before the juice has arrived
Pigeons jostling, apostling
The bearers of discarded delights

People counting down to growing old
Bowing their heads at the hole in the wall
There was a King and he gave me these wheels
And a Word on a board to absorb any stone from the crowd

Oh, Lord, don't you see my sign?
Everybody does but they don't wanna know it
It's a tough gig selling
The End of the World
But somebody's gotta do it

Count the rings to the answer machine
Note the noises of the house they're in
Baby coos over the sounds of a war
Must be a single mother with a teenage boy

Theft, fire and fatal disease
Heaven help you if you get all three
I know a saviour for ten dollars a week
And just a sign on the line to the Word of the Policy

Oh man, don't they hear me call?
Everybody does but they just ignore it
It's a tough gig selling
The End of the World
But somebody's gotta do it

The numbers greet me like a lover with news
To calculate the heavens is a solemn pursuit
Night sky so peaceful, it's hard to know
Why something so lonely should be throwing stones

There will be placard waving when I file my report
They'll be blaming fornicators and the mini skirt
And penning plucky headlines for the morning release
And they'll pencil in my armageddon
And even name it after me

Oh, will they ever understand?
Everybody does but they don't know how to say it
It's a tough gig selling
The End of the World
But somebody's gotta do it

© Brendan Bonsack
November 2012

1. Everybody Hungers
2. K
3. Flame Songs
4. My Electric Chair
5. All that is Solid Melts into Air
6. Selling the End of the World
7. A Dead Man's Clothes
8. Party Songs

Party Songs
Released November 2012