TV, can you see me?
You’re always holding court
telling stories,
when will you sit and listen?
Sometimes you’re a laugh,
but you can be a little horror.
More often than not
you’re full of drama.
When things get dark I watch my flat in you,
the main character perpetually deciding
whether or not to finish the share bag.
© Carl Burkitt 2020
If I was forced to eat a part of my own body
I would probably go for my quads.
They’re the right amount of meaty.
They feel like the kind of steaks I scoffed
before eating meat started making me queasy.
My head hair would be too curly to choke down,
my brain is full of rubbish, my skin is too dry
and my arse it too fine to get rid of.
I’d definitely go for the quads, they remind me
of the days I used to run through crowds,
sweat my way past whistles and horns,
cried in your raincoat skin at mile 13,
rejected the slice of pepperoni pizza from
the pensioner outside her terrace house
holding her Keep Going, Luvvies sign.
I’d reminisce over a slice of my quads,
they taste like trying.
© Carl Burkitt 2020
Slippers filled with football socks,
extra cheese deep pan stuffed crust,
Pringle smeared PlayStation controller,
I’ve never put a single mug of coffee on you.
An inch thick unticked to do list,
fallen egg yolk from my overwhelmed beard,
a laptop full of unanswered emails,
I’ve never put a single mug of coffee on you.
Elbows propping up my soaking face,
the jigsaw made of Christmas dogs,
your tiny hand resting on my bruised paw,
I’ve never put a single mug of coffee on you.
© Carl Burkitt 2020
A faceless alien landed in the corner of our bedroom.
It had four legs and cream painted wooden bones.
Its skin was woven yellow and tattooed with llamas.
It smelled of talcum powder and puke.
It was screams and laughter and learning
and a slipper stepping on the fast forward
button.
It was a blowtorch having its way with a calendar.
It was a rollercoaster with no brakes,
an alarm clock made of sixty bum holes,
a piñata stuffed with every dream and fear
we’ve ever had waiting to shower our island.
© Carl Burkitt 2020
Duvet, you’re pretty smooth hey?
I fall for you every night.
You barely say a word
but I can’t resist the way you lie
with me.
My feet stick out the end of you
but you never mention it.
You focus on my torso, wrap tight,
work up a sweat.
We’re not good at goodbyes.
When the sun comes and ruins our fun
you whisper words of encouragement,
and promises of more of the same later.
© Carl Burkitt 2020
I put my naked feet on cold bathroom tiles
and told my toes they were patio slabs in shade.
I stood two inches from my bedside lamp wearing
loose grey shorts and a blue baseball cap.
The splinters and nails sticking up from the
living room floorboards were unwelcome weeds.
My bookshelves were unbending fences
draped in a million leafed pages of hard-spined
climbing plants. The toilet was a dirty pond,
the fireplace a BBQ, the drooping sofa a hammock.
When night came, the broken kitchen bulb
was the moon surrounded by LED spotlight stars.
© Carl Burkitt 2020
Hello down there.
I don’t think we’ve formally met,
tiny cream bathroom pedal bin.
I’m Carl.
I’ve lived in this flat for a year now.
How have I never used you?
I guess I don’t generally have waste
in this room, except, well, you know.
You seem to have quite a dusty head.
Is that a rusty hinge?
I should check in more.
© Carl Burkitt 2020
I’m looking at my flat a lot more lately.
Really looking at it. Beyond the floorboards, beyond the coffee table,
beyond the books, beyond the bookshelves,
beyond the paint, beyond the bricks, beyond the mustard candy floss insulation,
beyond the inevitable mice, beyond the other bricks,
beyond the plum-coloured tree unsure
whether it’s trying to die or regrow,
beyond the road and the bus stop
and the shops and the concrete hill,
beyond the birds, clouds, the sky I can’t remember,
beyond space and stars and black holes
and questions and answers and sleep and awake
and blood and bones and what?
I can’t stop looking at my flat.
© Carl Burkitt 2020
You make me feel
like I’m scrubbing my bits on a bus.
I’m a sweaty sausage on display at a deli,
a ‘break in case of emergency’.
When my brain does that morning day dream
thing of making me pretend I’m performing
the future eulogy of a loved one, I feel like
I’m drowning in a see through coffin.
Sometimes though, watching condensation
drip down you as I sit on the loo opposite
I can remember rainy motorway trips
and the taste of raspberry travel sweets.
© Carl Burkitt 2020
If someone stacked up the number of individual
Pringles I’ve ever eaten I hope I’d be proud.
One weekend when we were alone
my brother and I spread butter on our toast
using fingers instead of knives.
Sixteen years ago I Sellotaped my right foot
to my face cheek trying to earn a kiss
from a human woman. I once spent a whole week
learning the lyrics to Mundian To Bach Ke.
On a furiously sunny morning or afternoon
one November or August or March
I sat in a park or stood in a park and
made noises with my mouth for the first time.
Last week I ate a wedge of Brie like a Snickers.
© Carl Burkitt 2020
Carl tells tales 