I disagree with Tony Power, a world without rabbits
would not be fine by me. I like looking at carrots
knowing they have somewhere to go and be useful.
I disagree with Erin Moore, deep freeze will not
dispatch your slugs and snails it will drown your
memories in the carpark by the sports hall where
your arm got sliced by a pencil sharpener because
you trusted someone who. said, Put your arm out.
I disagree with Arun Kashyap, true AI cannot only
succeed if we capture life’s mystery. I disagree with
David Seagar. I disagree with David Marjot, language
was not the bedrock of early humans, it was squinting
at the sun. I disagree with Denis Watkins, global
catastrophes do not threaten to destroy hope.
I’m looking at a photo of you.
.

© Carl Burkitt 2022

Pick a daisy, feed it to a tortoise.
Point at the sun like a caveman.
Refuse to take your jumper off,
where socks that stink. Forget
about rooms you don’t like.
Eat cereal at night. Draw
a giraffe on bathroom tiles.
Feel rage and joy deep enough
that you don’t know where
they came from.

© Carl Burkitt 2022

Hooves click
like a keyboard’s letter U,
slowly until strides are loosened
from sugar cubes made from
How was your weekend?
Is it possible to describe
flying when you’re expected
to trot in a straight line.

© Carl Burkitt 2022

but Nottingham has a café
to wait in when you miss your train
and has a fake fireplace and a freezer
with no ice creams in it
and a broken card payment system
and a pinball machine called Rainbow’s Gold
that is plastered with cartoon lucky charms
and sets off the room’s security alarm
when you accidentally knock it
with your elbow and the noise
startles a woman with hair like Grandma
who drops her hot chocolate over the legs
of her son wearing Leicester City shorts.

© Carl Burkitt 2022

to the person I’ve never met
behind the door covered in pink banners.
The number of cars on your drive
and the road outside your house makes me
wonder how big your mug cupboard is.
One handle for every heart
you have turned into midweek tea.

© Carl Burkitt 2022

There’s a cat in the house
and no one knows who owns it.
Its fur is Dad’s new beard
and its tail the wooden beams
stretching across the ceiling
above people dancing in the living room
and below people sleeping.
There’s a cat in the house
refusing water from a human cup,
tip-toeing through the kitchen
wondering who it belongs to,
and why the building feels like home.

© Carl Burkitt 2022

Mona Lisa is in the toilet
pretending not to look.
Her part-smile is
enough to turn the taps off.
It’s a small space in here,
elbows touching walls,
backs touching doors,
head touching ceiling.
She doesn’t deserve
to be here, all not real
and cramped in a box
avoiding the eyes of
a man unsure how
to think about nuance.

© Carl Burkitt 2022

You are in
your first football kit
eating biscuits
smiling at a camera.
I am by a river
on the other side
of the universe
in front of three screens
holding a mouse
that doesn’t know
how it got here.

© Carl Burkitt 2022

Chewing gum sits on the train seat
like anybody who has ever sat on a train seat,
looking out the window counting trees
silently whistling to forget how its brain
is stuck on the same track. Did you remember
the kitchen roll, the potatoes? Don’t forget
to double check everyone knows where you’re
going. Keep going. Get jammed in the teeth
of a commuter hoping to wipe away
the smell of raw red onion from a sandwich
on the go. It might be worth checking
the man opposite has finished with his
bottle of juice before you head to the toilet
because I think there’s a bin near the door.
Keep an ear out for your phone
in case you’re ever free.

© Carl Burkitt 2022

Emails catch me off guard when I’m being a human.
I think about microwaves
wishing they could take a coat of plastic
casing off in the summer, kettles screaming
that their insides are boiling. We’ve all done jobs
we hate. Do alarm clocks want to wake us up?
Our television winks when we turn it off
and sighs when we turn it on. I feel
my joints in the middle of the night
dreaming of being made out of the metal
used for the wings of airplanes.

© Carl Burkitt 2022