Moon Lemon Tangle

Single by Brendan Bonsack

Fourteen thousand steps ago

I ran into a neighbour

Their hearing is on Wednesday

Their mother has the cancer

A chat bot told them

If you put a frog in boiling water

That it's better for the tadpoles

For the warm will grow them taller

They're copying the books

And then burning the books

And then they're

Selling us the ashes

Once upon a time, you know

I knew a story came

From the heart of an artist

(or ghost-written by their lover)

My neighbour tells me

They were up all night with GP Chatters

They think it might be sentient

It seems to know them better

Than anyone they've ever been

Or lain with altogether

I feel so old, a box under my bed

Stuffed full with letters

They're copying the books

And then burning the books

And then they're

Selling us the ashes

Monday, Tuesday disappear

My neighbour can't be found

Take the kittens and the passwords

They said, if things go down

Fourteen million steps ago

I'd have told a different story

But all previous instructions

Always can ignore me

They're copying the books

And then burning the books

And then I think they must be selling us

The ashes of our words

Dressed up as water, jump

Like frogs, it's just warm

Enough for swimming

For notes and lyrics, visit brendanbonsack.com/songs/selling-the-ashes


© Brendan Bonsack 2025

Single by Brendan Bonsack

Her glistening eyes as round as the moon

Extending to my mouth a spoon of mango chutney

The joyous whole of a day in June on a tongue-tip

Oh how the body surely is a work of magic

Blood orange

Missed Calls

Falling for the love of the fear

Of falling

She is turning and she is saying:

Do you now what's wrong with you?

Absolutely nothing

The glistening moon as round as her eyes

When a love too big for one body it slips into disguises

I am tied at the tongue-tip, an actor forgetting all his lines

And how surprising, this old déjà vu tonight

Blood orange

Missed Calls

Falling for the love of the fear

Of falling

She is turning and she is saying:

Do you now what's wrong with you?

Absolutely nothing

For notes and lyrics, visit brendanbonsack.com/songs/june


© Brendan Bonsack 2025

Single by Brendan Bonsack

A Bunsen Burner removed my eyebrow

In fourth form science

To this day, there's a corner

That never grows back

Carl Sagan says

Matter is composed

Chiefly of nothing

The universe is cold and empty

And wants to kill you

This morning

A person I'd never met

Picked me a straggly

Bunch of flowers

To give to my friend

For their birthday

Carl Sagan says

Matter is composed

Chiefly of nothing

The universe is cold and empty

And wants to kill you

I hugged another human

Briefly transgressing

The local laws

It was sunshiny and novel

I could feel my

Empty spaces closing in

Carl Sagan says

Matter is composed

Chiefly of nothing

The universe is cold

And wants to kill you

Unless it wants to make you

Over and over

For notes and lyrics, visit brendanbonsack.com/songs/carl-sagan-says


© Brendan Bonsack 2025

EP by Brendan Bonsack

1. Airbag Blooms

2. Facts About Dinosaurs

3. Dusk Birds

4. Caught in the Storm

For notes and lyrics, visit brendanbonsack.com/albums/bronto-meaning-thunder


© Brendan Bonsack 2025

Album by Brendan Bonsack

1. Supermarket

2. Ladderism

3. Bee in Every Dream

4. Sewing Room

5. Civil Defense

6. Café Fly

7. Talk About the Passion

8. A Reed Among Many

9. Flower Wall

For notes and lyrics, visit brendanbonsack.com/albums/all-quiet-in-the-laundromats


© Brendan Bonsack 2025

Single by Brendan Bonsack

I thought of you again today,

Much younger, a wine glass in hand

That share house election party

Gathered together in a smoke haze

Round the TV, Keating's finest hour,

Nineteen ninety three;

I was western suburbs unemployed

You'd just started teaching

The sweetest night of all,

You said, almost planting a kiss

"They tried to divide the country,

but the people have kept the faith"

Do you first write your victory speech

Then the other one just in case?

A clarion of pots and pans

All down our Somerville Road.

I got older than you.

Your wife has begun to see someone new,

I bumped into your kids,

And well they're making happy as they can

What a time we are having.

I feel narrow as a Polaroid

"They tried to divide the country,

but the people have kept the faith"

Do you first write your victory speech

Then the other one just in case?

True believers

True believers

True believers

I think of you every time

I am standing in the line

For a sauce and democracy sausage

That election party invitation

On the fridge, photocopy of a photocopy

I got older than you

I don't truly believe

In this illusion of choice,

But you gotta use it

Or they'll certainly take it away

What are you doing Saturday with your ghost?

Pick a marginal - I'll tell you if it falls.

"They tried to divide the country,

but the people have kept the faith"

Do you first write your victory speech

Then the other one just in case?

True believers

True believers

True believers

For notes and lyrics, visit brendanbonsack.com/songs/true-believers


© Brendan Bonsack 2025

EP by Brendan Bonsack

1. Retreat Hotel

2. First Person Shooter

3. Biopsy

4. All Previous Instructions

For notes and lyrics, visit brendanbonsack.com/albums/still-life-creatures


© Brendan Bonsack 2025

Single by Brendan Bonsack

The king has died, the king is dead

They’re minting special coins

They’re firing rifles in the air

Birds are scattering everywhere

The king has died, the king is dead

It’s all over the news

The writers right and the writers left

Are rifling through the things he said

What is a king, what is a king?

But dirt surrounded by a ring

Of men in suits, of men with guns

Some pointed out, some pointed in

Who built the roads, who built the rail

Not the king with the silky hands

Never knew the soil nor splinter

He flew abroad for every winter

Who fired the shots, who dug the holes?

Who drove the trucks and trains?

Who put their wages in the banks

To furnish him with bombs and tanks?

What is a king, what is a king?

But dirt surrounded by a ring

Of men in suits, of men with guns

Some pointed out, some pointed in

The king has died, the king is dead

There’s children waving flags

Look how well the children sing

How well the song fit for a king

Oh boy, oh girl, oh let this be

A footnote to his fugue

They may shoot you down for not digging

But the earth remains unmoved

What is a king, what is a king?

But dirt surrounded by a ring

Of men in suits, of men with guns

Some pointed out, some pointed in

For notes and lyrics, visit brendanbonsack.com/songs/what-is-a--king


© Brendan Bonsack 2025

Album by Brendan Bonsack

1. Sixty Six

2. Bubble Gum

3. Holler and Wave

4. Brain Scan

5. Shooting Hoops

6. Down to the Buttons

7. Honeymaker's Waltz

8. After Diane

For notes and lyrics, visit brendanbonsack.com/albums/december-tapes


© Brendan Bonsack 2025

Single by Brendan Bonsack

When I was seven

I was convinced

I could hear the sun

A high pitched roar

Flailing the tall grass and

Rumbling the tops of the trees

You're big enough to walk now

But watch out for snakes

Around your feet

Nana said it was just the insects

Talking to each other

But she couldn’t hear a thing

It has to be the sun, I said

I only ever hear it in the daytime

Under the covers at night

I gazed at my astronomy book

That blazing giant and

All of its planets in a row

Pastel and smooth

A finger and a thumb between them

When I was seven

That snowball Pluto

Was still one of them

My science book says

Sound is the changes

That we feel inside us

In the air pressure pressed against us

The lilt in Nana's voice

Is a long summer's day

And she said it's just the insects

Talking to each other

But she couldn’t hear a thing

It has to be the sun, I said

I only ever hear it in the daytime

For notes and lyrics, visit brendanbonsack.com/songs/the-sun-sound


© Brendan Bonsack 2024