Picking the Stitches (of a year that was)

I wondered what the trees feel
All strung up with lights
And why no-one ever asks them
If they want to be so tied
It's my festive season
And if I want to I'll cry

And I thought about the sickness
That only wants to live
Trucks designed for frozen peas
To stack the bodies in
My nana told my daddy
There'd be days like this

Picking the stitches
Of a year that was
To wash and dry and thread the eye
Of just because
Some kinda love sets us going
And we gotta know
Where it goes

I wondered about my uncle
If I called him enough
Well, I didn't call him ever
But I thought about it once
Just when I'd needed kinder hands
He'd taught me how to fight

The tinsel round the mountains
Strung red, as red as fire
I wondered how the trees perceive
Our religions and our science
It's my apocalyptic scene
If I want to, I'll deny it

Picking the stitches
Of a year that was
To wash and dry and thread the eye
Of just because
Some kinda love sets us going
And we gotta know
Where it goes

~ Brendan Bonsack

Can't Fall Any Further

The sunshiny awning birds
Chiming something new
You fix me a little silence
And I share some with you
Our bodies are the hourglass
Toppled in the night
We can't fall any further
The sands between your toes say
We've seen all this before
Keep an ear to the ocean
He's just a shell and nothing more
We're the curving of the hourglass
Resting on its side
We can't fall any further
The echo of a siren
This rowdy city's never far
You hum an a Cappella
Sunken treasure in my ear
Our bodies are the hourglass
Toppled in the night
We can't fall any further

~ Brendan Bonsack

Nana Europa

It was a lonely winter
I heard you lost a friend
To the allure of a strongman
And the promised happy end

What happens to the secrets
You told a friend who understands?
What happens when they fall
Into the wrong hands?

My Nana told my Daddy
There'd be days like these
Hush now, Nana Europa
You're going to scare the kids

It was a lonely winter
I heard you lost your job
They tested rockets bound for Mars someday
As you were queuing for the dole

Toe worn through the shoe again
And peeling at the sole
You got them cheap on Amazon
To support their CEO

My Nana told my Daddy
There'd be days like these
Hush now, Nana Europa
You're going to scare the kids

It was a lonely winter
I heard you lost yourself
To that old seductive darkness
That waits in most of us

You hacked an iso haircut
You stacked the iso weight
You saw the strongman falter
And baked yourself an iso cake

~ Brendan Bonsack

A Penny Sonata

I put on my penny beethoven
and cry myself to sleep
draining at the limbs

an ocean dreamed me to life once

I say I love fish, but in truth
I mean the taste of them
and the pretty swish of their tails

this is the century of our drowning

knee-deep already
and we still say the future
as if it were a place

a kiss shall not wake me, but

oh the embrace
my three penny moonlight makes
the first move

~ Brendan Bonsack

If You Should Find Your Key

Joy
Is not ours to keep
It visits, like a certain
Shimmer in the breeze

It asks
The hairs upon the skin this dance
And the skin the rhythm finds in time
And then the skin agrees

A certain fall and curl of leaf
How the colour breathes
To rush the heart
Through its seasons

Like a certain breath of light
By window, by doorway
A brook of stairway voices
A laughter of shadows

Joy is the music
Set to a certain dancer, so
If you should find your key
I wish you joy

Joy
Is not ours to keep
It knows but once the things to say
And then it barely speaks

It knows
Precisely when to leave
A when you're down and failed, find me
Trail of memories

It sees
Your silent solace in the trees
It's in the path a drop of rain will take
To touch you on the cheek

Joy is the music
Set to a certain dancer, so
If you should find your key
I wish you joy

~ Brendan Bonsack

Those Three Words

Smash the state
Eat the rich
Phone your mother
Feed the kids
And try not to die

Get a job
Pay the bills
Make that date
Take those pills
And try not to die

Keep those three words alive
I, I, I, I….

Go to school
Learn to swim
Don't be her
Be like him
And try not to die

Vote for me!
Thoughts and prayers!
Stop the boats!
Look over there!
The fake news lied!

Keep those three words alive
I, I, I, I….

Smash the state
Eat the rich
Keep the faith
Burn that bridge
And try not to die

Lock them up!
Set them free!
Save the world
Plant a tree!
And try not to die

Keep those three words alive
I, I, I, I….

~ Brendan Bonsack

Graveyard Tale

Should this silent sickness lift
And touch return to us
I wonder shall I fear that rush of feeling?
Walking in the cemetery today,
I startled two lovers
Obscured though they were
By an improvised tent,
Coloured scarves, pinned
And draped between headstones
On the plushest patch of grass,
Bare-faced, mostly naked, embraced
Like two genera of graveflower
Escaping their stony bounds
To mingle and tingle and thread
When our six eyes in that moment met
I was a ghost,
A road killed creature
Stunned in the headlights of sex
We all reached for our masks
As if by this new instinct

~ Brendan Bonsack

A-tishoo A-tishoo

A-tishoo A-tishoo we all fall down
You learnt it in school
You're remembering now, with a laugh
The sting from the cane of the nuns
If you fell out of time
Out of the round

This story this story's your anchor today
Over and over
I hear it the same as the last
The half hour barely shifts the reflections
Of light on the glass
Between us, and you say:

Take me home
I don't want to be here
Anymore
The clock on the wall says it's
No time at all
Since they put me in

A-tishoo A-tishoo we all fall down
You remember your Rosie
How she nearly drowned by the school
Old Sister Mary threw off her habit
And dived in
Oh the whipping and the grounding
You got for it all

I promise I promise, I'll ask them again
When we can go walking
And I'll book in time for your hair
You saw me for your birthday, yes,
It has already been
I'm sorry for the time and I'm sorry no hugs
And you say

Take me home
I don't want to be here
Anymore
The clock on the wall says it's
No time at all
Since I was just a girl

~ Brendan Bonsack

Smoke That Keeps the Fire

For human beings
I think we were the best we'll ever be
That night
They say things like the stars aligned
But how can it be stars?
A hush of cloud barely above us
We made our own light
We shimmers epidermal
We smoke that tends the fire
Hold me, I am water, we had cried.

A human being,
You drowned my little lonely next to me
That night
I watched them sink, tied to my grief
A tumbling shiny shard
Love will fill the sea with holes
We have to shed our selves
We shimmers so ephemeral
We smoke that keeps the fire
Hold me, I am water, we must cry.

For human beings
I think we were the best we'll ever be
That night
They say things like we bear the scars
But how can they be scars?
The knotted tree was tendril once
Just making for the light
We shimmers circumstantial
We smoke that spread the fire
Hold me, I am water, we all cry.

~ Brendan Bonsack

100 Days

I want to pack myself tight and follow you
But life sits on my chest
That stubborn bellows

Say tomorrow enough times fast
And it sounds like a made up word

I glimpse your face in crowds
And know it can't be you

Or it's me, packed tight and hoping that you will follow

I want cut myself loose and be with you
In that room your mother sealed
But time's a stubborn arrow

Pray the right way and hard enough
They say that all wounds heal

Your mother took the Jesus down from the wall
Whenever I came round to see you

Barely me, packed tight and hoping that you would follow

I want to make myself right there with you
As you are lining up your shoes
Your world growing narrow

Say tomorrow to me ten times fast
Say it louder till I see you

I'm just another face in the crowd
And any one of us could be you

100 days, packed tight and dreaming that I could follow
100 days, packed tight and dreaming that I could follow

~ Brendan Bonsack

I Prefer the Arrow

Don't ever say you didn't mean those things
I prefer the arrow to the poisoned drink
I don't sleep so well with you inside my dreams
But I can't sleep at all when they're without

I don't know when I will see you
Maybe I'll never ever see you
These years just want to eat us alive
But please you know what to do
Survive, survive, just survive.

I see the numbers laid grim in the news
And they can't be you, no they can't be you
I know that archer, who draws the nock in sleep
To tell how it will be, but we've yet to meet

I don't know when I will see you
Maybe I'll never ever see you
These years seem intent on us to die
But please you know what to do
Stay alive, stay alive, stay alive.

I don't really want to hear you changed your mind
They'd never let you on the train, the desperate state, their angry lines
I prefer to think somewhere your quiver blooms
And you have gone, gone straight and true.

I don't know when I will see you
Maybe I'll never ever see you
These years seem intent on our demise
But please you know what to do
Stay alive, stay alive, stay alive.

~ Brendan Bonsack