It's Been A While

from Northern Sketches by Gary Bunting

	/

Cassette + Digital Album
Includes unlimited streaming of Northern Sketches via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

ships out within 1 day

$10 USD or more
Streaming + Download

Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

Purchasable with gift card

$1 USD or more
Buy the Full Digital Album

lyrics

It’s Been A While

It’s been a while since I last penned a black ink poem
Been busy
Collecting dirty postcards
And washing soup stains out of the sofa
Picking scabs like tin can ring pulls
Pinning butterflies and storming castles
Writing tragedies, comedies, remedies
Sculpting heroines, theremins, Bedouins
Deleting flash drives, smoking out beehives
Afternoon naps, kick back, relaxing
Remembering, forgetting, misplacing, maybe
Brewing bad tea and oiling old knees
Sewing up pockets and eyeballing sockets
Manoeuvering death, improving life
Growing blood apples, sidestepping arseholes
Growing up, shaking up
Thinking about all the things I should’ve taken up
Diluting my pain, anticipating rainfall
Sometimes you’ve got to carve the day out with a knife
And sometimes, it just happens.

It’s been a long old time, sure
Some would say not long enough
Just ask the postman
Weighed down with my rejection letters
A trail of elastic bands in my yard
Like a mountaineer marking his way home
“But they’re biodegradable” he smirks over his shoulder
“Sure” I say
But six months later, they’re still there
Strangling field mice and choking magpies

credits

from Northern Sketches, released October 22, 2021

license

about

Hello America Stereo Cassette

A new record label releasing audio recordings of writers' work. Poems backed by noise. Novels as audio books. Stories on cassettes. Curated by Adam Gnade. Currently accepting submissions.