A temporary Rudolph tattoo is flying
on your wrist. It came in your Christmas stocking
with others shaped like presents and gingerbread
people and a wreath you don’t quite care about.
Rudolph is zooming around the room
unaware anyone is helping him move.
You’re quick to run these days. You turn
years into minutes with some kind of magic dust.
You make it impossible to breathe,
in a good way,
like a reindeer hurtling through space
with a mouthful of carrot and mince pie.

Carl Burkitt 2023

They flapped, the Robins,
but a Christmas Day in the nest
will always take its toll.

Carl Burkitt 2023

Ally McCoist is trying to gather his thoughts
after Jeff Stelling’s Christmas dinner bombshell.
They’re bantering and calling each other
PG-friendly insults. It’s a bit of fun.
A talkSPORT emailer asks the question:
No gravy? What’s the point in Christmas?
Jeff speaks of being surrounded by faces
you’ve watch grow over the years, a cracker
hat nestled neatly on the crown of his head,
the touch of his wife’s hand as they drift
off on the sofa for the countless year in a row.
Ally McCoist rereads the email out loud
and agrees with the listener that no gravy
on your Christmas dinner is the calling card
of a future serial killer.

Carl Burkitt 2023

Whatever it is
it’ll be no good for your throat,
especially if it was tinsel. Imagine it
tangled around your tonsils
on Christmas morning. Stopping you
from saying kind things to ears
you want in your house, eating a knuckle
of blue cheese with raspberry jam,
swallowing your homemade mulled wine
with the final After Eight Mint
and the sinking sensation that Christmas
is often no more than the press
of a pause button.

Carl Burkitt 2023

The poet wakes, rubs snot
from his nose with a stuffed Rudolph,
looks out of the blackened window
and says something
larger than his three years.

Carl Burkitt 2023

The sprouts will do their best
not to listen to opinions.
They will walk into the dining room
with the intention of being proud
of being green. They will
hope to sit comfortably in their scent
and not offer excuses or hit themselves
with insults to make the room easier.
They will not wonder
why they are not being asked
second questions after ‘How’s work?’
and focus on the few tongues
that recognise the joy of difference.

Carl Burkitt 2023

The lads are getting their Christmas haircuts.
Curly pine needles are dropping to the floor,
one geezer gets a tinsel fringe,
and two bauble are waiting on a sofa to be polished.
They’re arguing about the taste of sprouts
and whether you should open presents
before or after your Christmas dinner
and if they’re excited for the King’s Speech.
I nod and tut and laugh when appropriate
but mainly wonder why I only call
my sideburns ‘sideys’ to the barber.

Carl Burkitt 2023

Russell Crowe is at Euston station
struggling to hear the Tannoy announcement
that all the trains between Watford
and Milton Keynes have been cancelled
for the next three hours. He’s fuming
at Upper Crust and Burger King and his watch
and can just about smell the pizza
he was planning to have with his family
when he got home.

Carl Burkitt 2023

She’s writing her Christmas cards
on the fold-out table on the back of a train seat.
The pile she’s finished is on the 7am chair
next to her: pale white, bolt upright, thick
as a door stop. Her hair is familiar.
She’s wearing the navy blue and grey floral dress
my therapist used to wear and she’s just written
the word MUMMY on a freshly opened envelope.

Carl Burkitt 2023

he says to his mates
wearing Santa hats with a charity logo
embroidered on the white bit.
They clink their seven pints of stout
together and start talking about the state
of Manchester United Football Club.

Carl Burkitt 2023