I can’t remember a day
I haven’t thought about the guys
in a documentary whose job it was
to use an axe to chop off human sized lumps
of solidified cooking oil, discarded down sinks,
from the walls of English sewers.
Their skin looked like gravel drowning in gloss paint,
their hair was butter-drenched spaghetti
and they refused to breathe through the nose.
The smaller of the two had a smile
twice the size of the blade in his hand.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

Magicians who pull rabbits out of their hats
must be very content with life.
You never see a magician pulling out
rent money or friends or confidence.
If I was a magician I would use my hat
to pull out salt and vinegar Pringles,
long sleeve shirts that make it to my wrists,
words I wish I’d said years ago.
I certainly wouldn’t cut my wife in half
even if I could put her back together again.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

My eyes sit above two black bags.
I can’t take them out on a Sunday night,
but they’re constantly filled
with all sorts of rubbish:
the rotting peels of over-ripe thoughts,
empty crisps packets laced with shame dust,
skeletons of anxiety,
the pips of awkwardness,
the skins of fear.
Today they’re stuffed with leftovers
of preparing for the future.
They’re bulging with wrinkled smiles.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

Every so often
I can feel
a bumble bee
bouncing
inside my skull
trying its best
to make honey.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

It was a Tuesday or a Thursday or a Sunday
and I was 19 or seven or 31
and the room smelled of chips or pork or egg
and the wallpaper was blue or green or paint
and the weather was snow or wet or hot
and the car was a car or a boat or a car
and the night was a day or a morning or a lunch
and I was you or me or the moon
and there was music or birds or lightening
and it doesn’t matter because it happened
and nothing was real anymore.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

I got doorstepped by a crumble.
A friendly foiled paparazzi.
A tray of apples picked from thoughtful trees
sprinkled with sugar by fingers I can’t remember.
Earth has a two-metre circumference
and I don’t know how to yell
a smile that far yet.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

Too often
my phone is a grenade
thrown into the living room
by people I forget exist
when trying to breathe
through my day.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

Muscle jelly time.
Memory blender.
Tucking in the eye blankets.
Return ticket to Snooze Island.
Reunion with the past.
A monster’s morning.
Break time for the bulbs.
Dribble pillow.
Unconscious trump session.
Slow motion musical statues.
Show time for the ghosts.
Upsetting preview of
the world’s most distressing head film.
Saucy blood flow.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

If we could choose
the form of our cremated ashes
I would opt for the dust on a Frazzle.
I would gather under your finger nails.
I would burrow inside your molars.
I would linger on your finger tips.

© Carl Burkitt 2020