It’s at my feet,
gobbling the filth
falling
from my key areas,
trying not to recycle
the greasy thoughts
dropping
from my head.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

I am asleep
on a train snoring
and strangers are laughing
and I am awake
and I laugh with the strangers
and the strangers laugh louder
and the snoring starts again
and the laughter stops
and I float out of the window
like a ghost with no ticket.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

I’m reading a book
because I like reading books
and in this book
I am reading about a man
who is reading a book
because he likes reading books
and I’m struggling to find any flaws in him
and I cannot work out the struggle he has
to overcome and he doesn’t seem to care
that he eats too many crisps
and how his hair doesn’t sit the way it should
or the fact his shoelaces have broken
because he can always order new ones
and I’m now on page 36 and he hasn’t
blamed the death of a stranger
on the fact he got on the wrong bus that time.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

Two anvils are taking turns
clanging on to tarmac.
Breath is punching out of a dry mouth.
The broom that lives at number 36
is scratch-scratching the leaves
to clear a path way.
Morning birds are chirping me on.
Raindrops a weeping from tree branches
at the sheer effort of it all.
A 6 foot 4 man is in my left ear
talking about speed and quadriceps.
A different 6 foot 4 man is in my right,
trying to read the lips of puddles.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

I’m on a train opposite the most handsome man
I have ever seen in my life. I don’t know what to do.
His hair is Matthew McConaughey. His hands
are George Clooney. His hips are André 3000.
His white shirt is half a size too small, not tight,
but the top button won’t quite do up
and his sleeves are teasing a watch on one wrist
and a friendship bracelet from the luckiest
person in the world on the other.
His trousers are the blue of a whale’s soul. He’s wearing trainers, so I can see us
going for a walk or playing a game of pool.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

The man on TV has been told
he might die in surgery
and he explains
how he will find the one breed
he’s always wanted to find while bird watching
when he survives. I’m not sure
he heard what he was told
so I turn the volume up
but the scene has changed. People are
talking about sex or crisps or something.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

He’s sat in a cushioned pub seat
wrapped in a red checked shirt.
His thick-rimmed glasses
are hanging off his wonky nose,
his cheeks are Mr Blobby pink.
He’s trying to tell a joke
about a farm or a shop or a lake,
he can’t remember
but the room of regulars
are nodding and laughing
and passing around dry roasted peanuts
and he remembers the joke
is about an airport
but everyone is gone.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

It’s standing
in the living room
draped in tinselled glory,
teaching a toddler
to be defiant, contrary,
to feel fabulous
in the oddness he was gifted.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

I have two golf balls
in the rough of my throat.
It’s not fair. A young Tiger
is clubbing me with paws
ready to learn and play.
I am a bogey. I need a
strong course of drugs.
I need my ma.
I’m desperate for pa.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

and that is not me.
The sound hits my chest
as hard as my son’s first cry
in the hands of a stranger
we will only ever know as “Doctor”.
Well-trodden phrases exist
because humans feel the same things
no matter how hard we try to be new
and her yell is blood-curdling.
I spin to see her at the end of aisle 12.
Another man called Dad gets to her first,
she smiles at his panicked skin
and says, There you are,
look at this Peppa Pig jigsaw.

© Carl Burkitt 2023