A shattered spiderweb
Too soon snowflake
Cracked fingers stretching
Flattened angel
Ghost of a butterfly
Crash pad for emotions
See through rage
An insecure fist
A chance to start again

Carl Burkitt 2024

It’s a heatwave.
Erling Haaland is reading
LEGO instruction manuals
in the backseat of a Ford Fiesta.
He’s flicking through the pages
imagining putting “that one there,
that one there, that one there”.
He’s singing along
to the official Wonka soundtrack
and dancing to the beat
of his own.

Carl Burkitt 2024

The video on the internet is telling me to
do three simple moves to stop me
getting tight hips with age. So I try them.
I stretch my legs out and try to touch my toes
with my fingers. My hip creaks like a spring
on a 1990s pogo stick. I hear nameless friends
moaning how they’ve waited ages for a go
and the stream next to my house is once again
too big and filthy to jump across. I wiggle
my fingers to get closer still and I’m learning
to ride a bike. The path down the street is
a fist I don’t want to punch me so I concentrate.
I stretch for a third time and my hip cries
as I feel my toenails and I am born again
in a hospital with grey walls and two hearts
prepared to give one more body everything it needs.

Carl Burkitt 2024

Your see-through skin
let’s me know what’s happening
in your heart
when I cannot step in:
dogs eating Mini Cheddars,
ale recommendations,
arguments over the best way
to cook liver between
men who have never cooked
dinner before, relentless lower
league football opinions,
vegetarian pie scepticism,
spliced crisp packet sharing,
relentless piss-taking, reluctant
opening up and hands on shoulders.

Carl Burkitt 2024

The London pigeon was
flying directly towards me.
I didn’t move out of the way.
It didn’t move out of the way.
I didn’t move.
It didn’t move.
We didn’t move.
Neither of us moved.
Neither of us moved.
Neither of us moved.
Neither of us m e
v
o
d.

Carl Burkitt 2024

Bob was born behind Blackpool Tower.
He quickly got used to sleeping
on wet concrete and chewing scraps
from bins with the crooked teeth
in his smiling overbite. His hair is
a grubby white, his eyes have seen
a few dark summers. “Half pug,
half shih tzu,” Bob’s owner says
encouraging his best friend to get
out of the spiky bush and enjoy the cricket
ground us humans are gossiping on.
“He loves it here,” Bob’s owner says,
looking down at the mud on his own jeans,
“…and it gets me out of the house,”
he continues, as the meaning of the words
‘rescue dog’ grows legs and runs.

Carl Burkitt 2024

I’ll see something funny in the street,
make it relatable with obvious descriptions
then make it surreal with a comparison
to something otherworldly or impossible
then bring it back to my ego and self esteem
before adding a line break
here then a poignant quote from a stranger
to make you think “wow, that was unexpected”.

Carl Burkitt 2024

“Good news,” the lady in the charity shop says,
“Someone your size has recently died.”
She holds up a pair of brown boots
ideal for my feet. They are well-worn,
the laces like calloused fingers.
The soles have a weekend of mud in them
remembering a man who didn’t stay at home
when the weather tried to convince him to.
I picture him – thighs as long as mine,
shoulders just as narrow but determined –
walking across the roof of this shop,
each click of his heel tapping out
an SOS message to keep moving forward.

Carl Burkitt 2024

Erling Haaland likes sitting in the corner of
his L-shape sofa with a baby-chick-yellow
cushion behind his Spider-Man PJ back
looking at the list of emojis on his mum’s phone.
His favourite is the poo one, obviously,
but he’s asking about the flags of the world.
He recognises some from the football on TV.
He smiles at the Turkey flag and asks when
he’ll get to have strawberry ice cream again
and the chance to jump into a warm pool.
He’s not bothered about the aubergine emoji,
he scrolls past it looking for a car or a red train.

Carl Burkitt 2024

Susan Shopmaker hired me for a major motion picture
so, of course, I was drowning in Oscar buzz.
Her casting record is second to none these days
so I didn’t think twice when she gave me the role
of an accountant for a family of mobsters.
Numbers are not my strong point,
neither is being strong, so I approached the part
with the mindset of just not standing out.
I played it low-key. I stood in the background.
I withheld opinions and never made eye contact
with any of my fellow actors. I never asked Susan
what she thought of my performance
because I didn’t want to let her down.
It’s true what they say
about film set catering, though, it was tasty.

Carl Burkitt 2024