The train station guard
(is that what he’s called?)
has a Valentine’s rose stuffed

in a hole in his sunrise yellow hi-vis.
I swoon. He nods, and tells my son
to stop “prancing” on the platform.

Carl Burkitt 2026

This is line one
This is line two
This is line three
[This is a line break]
This is the start of the second stanza
Where the poem notices something quirky
About the street I am standing in
[This is a line break]
And these are the last three lines
That relate that quirky street to me
Or my son to make me look good

Carl Burkitt 2026

The teacher is on a yellow stool in the kitchen
with an imaginary register in his hands.

“Mummy?” he says, spitting cheese as he talks.
“Here, sir!” Mummy says, waving back at him.
“You mean ‘Mr Burkitt’.”
“Yes, Mr Burkitt.”

“Daddy?” he says, slurping on his space water bottle.
“Hello Mr Burkitt,” I say, giving a thumbs up.
“You mean ‘Here Mr Burkitt’.”
“Yes, sir.”

Mr Burkitt huffs and begins phonics lesson.
“Oa oa, goat on a boat. Oo oo, look for a book.”
Mummy and Daddy do a great job repeating the sounds
so we’re allowed to play with cars in the living room.

Mr Burkitt sits on the sofa with a biscuit,
proud at all he has achieved.

Carl Burkitt 2026

She wants me to sing James Morrison songs
because she thinks I am James Morrison.
I explain that I am not James Morrison and she winks, because that’s exactly what James Morrison would say. After all, “Who else wears a cap in a pub to blend in?”

She asks me where I’m staying and she’s
pleasantly surprised that James Morrison would stay
in a Welsh caravan with two mates for the weekend.
I explain that I am not James Morrison and she tells me
to sing Broken Strings but I am not James Morrison.

Carl Burkitt 2026

The walk to school was an obstacle course of death.
The puddles hated him. The rain was clenched fists.
The tree branches were the whips of jellyfish tentacles.

If the wind wasn’t spitting ‘Go away!’ in his face
it was pushing his shivering chest to head back home.
But his feet refused to stop moving his scooter forward.

His forehead headbutted the breeze into oblivion.
His gloved fingers punched doubt in the temple.
His five-year-old body was ten times its size.
All because his dad is too scared to learn to drive.

Carl Burkitt 2026

It’s a big choice as a funeral song
for a 16-year-old.
His coffin strutted down the aisle
in my mind’s eye
as me and my mates stood
in borrowed suits not fully grasping
how small the small talk would be at the wake.
Acne does not belong in a crematorium.
I have a memory of his dad trying
to make us laugh and keep us comfortable
around an ocean of ghostly relatives
while his legs kicked below the surface.
The first time my son ran through the living room
and bumped his head on the coffee table
to the sound of a traffic collision,
I was prepared to never leave the house again.

Carl Burkitt 2026

“This is the highest motorway in the UK,”
my wife says (again) behind the steering wheel
with the beautiful predictability
of the Pennine Hills smiling beside me
outstretched with pride of the north.

Carl Burkitt 2026

The trailer in the cinema says,
“Sometimes we need someone
who reminds us that we exist”
and the man in the row behind me
farts. He leans forward to apologise
but all I can hear is his wife’s laughter.

Carl Burkitt 2026

The man dragging the full industrialised dehumidifier
across Cheadle Hulme Costa has zero sweat
on his neck, forehead, armpits, biceps and –
presumably –
above his buttocks. Even his mouth is dry
until a young barista carries over
a cup of something hot (I can tell by the
steam)
and a pastry. He waves the pastry and chins
the cup of hot liquid. I wouldn’t say
his scream is unbecoming, but the way he
threw the dehumidifier was deafening
(and impressive).

Carl Burkitt 2026

I like to imagine him sitting on his sofa
in a pair of fluorescent orange and green pyjamas.

On his lap is a dinner of chicken skewers
with a bowl of Chupa Chups for pudding.

He’s holding the TV control in an upright position
the base resting on his restless thigh,

sporadically pausing Traffic Cops
to let thoughts cross
from one side of his brain to the other. 

Carl Burkitt 2026