Good evening, says my school friend’s name,
Ready to ignore me with his new moustache
And thicker waist in the pub.
Everyone talks about how the name is still alive.
My right hand holds 19 years in a pint glass,
Each sip the taste of a memorial tree outside a school.
© Carl Burkitt 2023
A name
will walk into
a bar. Thick, blood pumping.
I’ll drink 19 years. We won’t talk.
Blissful.
© Carl Burkitt 2023
There once was a school friend’s name
That didn’t quite seem the same
It never spoke to me
Was cold and ghostly
And exaggerated its goalkeeping game
© Carl Burkitt 2023
Thick, moustachioed,
The name talks, but not to me.
Blissful ignorance.
© Carl Burkitt 2023
My school friend’s name walks into a bar: thick, moustachioed, blood pumping through its heart. It orders the weakest lager it can remember pretending to like and sits on a secure seat. The name has lived long enough to have grandchildren and is exaggerating its skill as a goalkeeper to the tired locals. The name talks, but not to me. It does not recognise my chin or the way I laugh half as much as I used to. My right hand is holding a pint of 19 years and the empty chairs around me are filled with ghosts from the outskirts of London, Poland, the old town of Swindon. The walls are 12.30am and my friend’s name looks cold. Its arm hurts, but I can just make out its smile, the size of a tree planted outside a school gate or a double decker bus filled with blissful ignorance.
© Carl Burkitt 2023
I am too long for a bath.
I need to make a decision between
lying down with bent legs
or sitting up with straight legs,
AKA cold dry knees v cold dry chest.
I do not relax in a bath.
I cannot drink red wine
and catch up on my stories.
I cannot think about my day
and scan how it affected my skin
or count the relationships
I haven’t lost yet or the things
I said to strangers in a voice
that isn’t mine.
When I am in a bath
I spend my time thinking
I am in a bath.
© Carl Burkitt 2023
Three and a half minute souls are sitting
in the hands of the radio presenters’ voices.
After each track has finished they’re throwing
around words like ‘wind machine pop’,
‘gospel cheese’ and ‘electric posh’.
The writers of the songs are in different towns
buying milk for the morning, getting their
haircut before getting home in time to put
their children to bed, opening their notepad
when everyone else is asleep.
© Carl Burkitt 2023
Michael Owen doesn’t breathe
between sentences at fulltime
as much as he probably should.
He sounds like he’s going to pass out
from full stop to full stop
over the excitement of men
he doesn’t know scoring goals
that make his eyes the size
of a 1990’s Mitre. The day
he got a hattrick against Germany,
Mum was making a lasagne or bolognese
or sausage stew in the other room.
Emile Heskey made it 5-1
and my uncle swore for the first time,
loud enough to stop me breathing
until fulltime.
© Carl Burkitt 2023
The straight-spined man wearing a morning-clean shirt in the afternoon with a black backpack over one shoulder looks like Dr Christian Jessen from Embarrassing Bodies, the Channel 4 TV show. I’m sitting next to the window of the pub and he’s striding healthily past from the train station. I picture him stopping for a pint and asking me about my body. I would show him the patch of missing hair on my knee ever since the surgery I had at 14 and the scar on my scrotum when some bloke’n his team operated on them when I was seven. I’d ask him why my hands are the size of my Dad’s but my wrists are only half the size of my Dad’s and why my shoulders are not as resilient. I’d ask if it’s normal to have a toe on a right angle and if it’s common for a body not to feel safe with the brain it has. He’d tell me he works for an insurance company in town and offer me a pork scratching.
© Carl Burkitt 2023
She’s in London from Monday to Wednesday.
On Wednesday afternoon she’ll be flying
to Prague – she has to book a flight for that
actually, please do remind her – then she’ll be
flying from Prague to China on Saturday –
which will be nice for you to get to finally
meet her and see in-person what she brings
to the organisation – then she’ll be back
in Manchester the following Saturday
but don’t worry, she’ll pop all of this
in the diary so you can keep abreast of her
movements and importance.
© Carl Burkitt 2023
Carl tells tales 