I’ve always eaten the crusts on my sandwiches.
10.5 in trainers, 11 in football boots, 12 in wellies.
The weather is fine up here.
It’s called vitiligo.
I was about 18 and 2 months old.
Daniel Bryan.
A chippendale or lead singer of Status Quo.
Roast dinner.
Being falsely imprisoned.
It depends when you ask,
but right now Salt and Vinegar.
I think about him every day,
it doesn’t matter how long you know someone.
© Carl Burkitt 2021
Game 1: Imagine you’ve met your doppelgänger – someone who looks exactly like you.
Game 2: Take 3 minutes to scribble down all the questions you would ask them.
Game 3: You are now the doppelgänger! Take 7 minutes to answer the questions the other you wrote in a 10 line (or more) poem.
There’s a framed picture of Frank Sinatra
frowning at a toddler
nailed wonkily to the wall
above a knackered juke box
playing Babyshambles on repeat.
The 70s wallpaper has chunks missing
and I can see at least three rusty pipes
behind the Japanese gins and American ales.
The exposed brick is crying damp.
Tripled cooked chips are sitting
in the middle of greasy upside down hats,
beetroot ketchup is dripping through the gaps.
There ain’t a smile in the gaff
and everyone feels at home.
© Carl Burkitt 2021
Game 1: Spend 2 minutes coming up with fake pub names (or cafes). List as many as you can.
Game 2: Pick the one you like the most.
Game 3: For 8 minutes, imagine you’re sitting in that pub or cafe. Write a poem with, as poet Tim Clare would say, “crunchy specificity”. Describe the place with great detail. What’s happening there? Who’s having a drink? Is anyone eating? Etc.
Carl Burkitt
I love how old you are.
I love how smooth you are.
I love how you keep going.
I love how secure you make me feel.
I love how you just decided
furniture is allowed to be fun.
I love how you keep going.
I love how you remind me of the sea.
I love thinking about being with you
on the porch drinking homemade lemonade
growing old and creaking together.
I love how you keep going.
I hate how often I imagine you rocking
in the dark with no one sitting on you.
© Carl Burkitt 2021
Game 1: Take a minute to find an inanimate object in your house.
Game 2: Spend 2 minutes looking at it and listing things you both like and hate about it.
Game 3: Write a love letter (or hate mail) to that object for 7 minutes.
I’m a volunteer chippendale
doing it for the adrenaline,
doing it in the windows
between metre readings
and learning about tax.
I’m a volunteer chippendale.
It started out to Status Quo
then James Bond themes
and now nursery rhymes.
I like watching my skin
that at one stage didn’t know how
to use a tin opener or put socks on
make shapes that don’t have names,
doing it in the windows
of self esteem.
© Carl Burkitt 2021
Game 1: Take a minute to think of the dream job you wanted as a kid.
Game 2: Imagine you have that job. Take 4 minutes to write a list of anything involved with that job. Consider: Clothes, things you’d say, people you’d meet, what would you have for lunch, do you enjoy the job, etc etc.
Game 3: Pop the job title at the top of a page and spend 5 minutes on a poem about a day in your new life. Aim for 10 lines (of length).
Your
posture
is a
thumbs up
to
everything
you’ve
learned
in 8 months.
© Carl Burkitt 2021
Carl tells tales 