Brendan Bonsack

How We Go

Don't know about humanity
Have you seen what they do?
Not sure about humanity
But I know that I love you

Don't know about my sanity
I'm sure I smiled and said I'm fine
Huddled round the light inside of me
It must be yours, don't think it's mine

How we go
How we go
Like toe prints in the snow
A word, a kiss, a broken heart
Not always in that order

Not sure about longevity
Seems getting older is a test:
How many people can you fit into
One heart
All at once and all the rest?

Where we stand
Where we stand
Like toe prints in the sand
With ninety ticks to midnight
So is that why you're calling?

Don't know about humanity
Have you seen what they do?
Not sure about humanity
But I know that I love you

How we try
How we try
Like falling from the sky
Feathers, ashes, wishes
And perfect flakes of ice
Is how we know
How we go
Like toe prints in the snow
Our word, our kiss, our broken hearts
Not always in that order

~ Brendan Bonsack

Fewer Shoes

I've been wearing fewer shoes
Since I met you
Fewer shoes than two shoes
Fewer shoes than two

And my skin reacts to water
Like it's something new
River take me under
Fewer shoes than two

What did I breathe
Before you
Set the air about me
Aflame with a light
On the world without me?

I've put a stop to the clocks that
Wear me like a day too soon
Paint me from the wrist down
Fewer shoes than two

And I'm not real till your brush
Unpeels me into the scene
River pull me under
Watercolour blues

What did I breathe
Before you
Set the air about me
Aflame with a light
On the world without me?

I've been wearing fewer shoes
Since I met you
Fewer shoes than two shoes
Fewer shoes than two

What did I breathe
Before you
Set the air about me
Aflame with a light
On the world without me?

~ Brendan Bonsack

Ships and Goods

The Billionaires are coming
And they want a new canal
For ships and goods
For ships and goods
They'll kill you

And you only want to eat
And you only want to dance
Someone is asking for your love
And you want to take the chance

The Billionaires are coming
And they want another road
For trucks and goods
For trucks and goods
They'll kill you

And you only want to eat
And you only want to dance
Someone is asking for your love
And you want to take the chance

You only want to call your neighbour
To say have you seen the moon?
It's been up there forever
But you just want to know they do

~ Brendan Bonsack & Celine Yap

Lighthouse Child

Only child of the lighthouse keeper
Never climb the stairs
Beyond the door with the lightning sign
Never in there, never in there

Only child of the lighthouse keepers
TV glow and their wine
Fortified to port and firing
Shots at each other
All through the night

Hey little friends in the rockpools
Hey little friends on the crags
Feather and bone
And the dead in the stones
Can we ever be lonely
If we are never alone?
Can we ever be lonely
If we are never alone?

Only child of the lighthouse keeper
Scrub and clean the stairs
Drowning dolls to find them later
In salty hollows
And drag them tender

Only child of the lighthouse
There's a wreck in everything
And the light keeps getting in
Radio, radio
There's one left alive

Hey little friends in the rockpools
Hey little friends on the crags
Feather and bone
And the dead in the stones
Can we ever be lonely
If we are never alone?
Can we ever be lonely
If we are never alone?
Can we never be lonely?

~ Brendan Bonsack

Sparrow Rescue

it rained this morning
the tram rails became
brimming canals
of jetsam sweet wrappers
and soggy cigarettes

the sparrow drinks
and plays in them
a grey-brown frivolous
the tram
bears down, oblivious

I want to leap out
slice through the coming disaster
scoop the feathery dot
to my palms
take it home in my pocket
raise it in a shoe box
feed it by eyedropper

but it flies away
just in time,
as sparrows do

they're not idiots

~ Brendan Bonsack

You Know What We Are

My head is full of wine
You are beautiful
And I love you
Look how the tramlines shine
They must love us too

Tell me a story
Tell me a story
For just a little tenderness
Out here
We're not really lovers
You know what we are

Our Boomer parents knew
They were wrecking the future
Everything so glittery
And consumable, combustible

Just as we know, this algorithmic
World we're making
Will probably not end well

Tell me a story
Tell me a story
For just a little tenderness
Out here
We're not really lovers
You know what we are

Look how the tramlines shine
We are throats full of words
And nothing much
This night, I'm smitten
So consumable, combustible

Let's be the end of something
You first, I'll follow

Treading knots along a string
Moonshadows stepped
On every crack
We could kiss against
A factory wall and there'd
Be a song in that

Tell me a story
Tell me a story
I'm falling apart in the
Place where we fell
We're not really lovers
You know what we are

~ Brendan Bonsack

Note to Self (Remember Your Heart)

I thought that everybody cried
At the sight
Of burning children
In the rubble

But some won't even
Try to hide
That they're cheering
On this spectacle

I saw some Preppers
On the news
Filthy rich and kinda clueless
Stacking food and ammunition
Wondering who
To pay to keep ’em safe
All the Bitcoin in the world
Is no investment when
What you'll need is love

Remember your heart
Your heart has possession
Of what makes it human
Its imagination
Remember your heart
It's one easy rhythm
Right there at the start
It made you from nothin’

Look for the peoples
Bearing stretchers
Made from scrap metal and rags
A tiny cry, any small shred
Of breath
Is ever worth the chance

I saw a picture
There were scores of people
Holding on tight to one man
Atop a high bridge
They were just passing
They did not know him
But they had to see him live

Remember your heart
Your heart has possession
Of what makes you human
Its imagination
Remember your heart
It's one easy rhythm
Right there from the start
It made you from nothin’

~ Brendan Bonsack

Everything Creaks

Everything creaks in this world
My children rode my shoulders before I was born
Their new finger whorls in the furrows of my brow
And I was born with this feeling

Shoulders passed along by bone
Lungs flowered like palms at a stream
Waiting for the air to come
In this world
Everything creaks

Grasses grind against the breeze
Springs of clothes pegs clutch at threads
Shedding rust in flecks, the dance of it
The bone keys and old grain

Pass along in pieces, and voices and hands
Graven and engraven with their little maps
Pressed into the path of chattering reeds
And I was born with this feeling

Everything creaks in this world
Finger line in dust, a book on the shelf
Open any page to the scent of your room
I could die of this feeling

Drifting in the wake of a Jupiter storm
My children named the moons before I was born
Feathers warble hey look what I found
In this world everything creaks
And I was born with this feeling
Bone keys so quaver thin
Everything creaks

~ Brendan Bonsack