The three wise men are lined up
on the TV unit next to a wooden red bus.
The camel is chatting to the passengers
while baby Jesus is sitting in the back
of a yellow dump truck with a banana skin.
The manger is in four parts and smells
of Shreddies, Rice Pops, Cornflakes, everything.
Who knows where Mary and Joseph are,
the donkey’s drowning in the bath.
© Carl Burkitt 2022
I went for a coffee with Michael Bublé
at the Cheadle Hulme Costa.
We both ordered tea and giggled.
I wasn’t hungry but Michael ordered
a white chocolate Rice Krispy Christmas wreath
covered in green and red sprinkles.
We tried to catch up about the last few years
but other customers kept pestering him for autographs.
He mouthed Sorry to me every time he stood
up for a selfie no matter how many times
I waved away the apology and smiled.
Before we knew it, he was standing on our table
with a member of staff belting out Jingle Bells
while I succumbed to a nibble of his wreath.
© Carl Burkitt 2022
and I am back on the school bus
throwing oranges with future graphic designers,
electricians, teachers, plumbers, doctors,
engineers, and bleak local newspaper headlines.
Moby’s just come on. He wants to know why
his heart feels so bad as AA batteries are
being lobbed from the back of the bus
against the necks of the people at the front.
© Carl Burkitt 2022
He’s sitting on a chair made from little
imagination (four legs, hard back, no cushion)
attempting to put a Christmas playlist together.
He cannot remember his own opinions. What
makes his feet tap? What makes his fingers smile?
What makes his hair pick him up like the claw
of a Weston-super-Mare arcade toy grabber
and drop him in a living room with bacon
for wallpaper, wrapping paper for carpet,
pink cheeks from laughter and closed windows?
He’s sitting on a chair made from an ache
to put a Christmas playlist together.
© Carl Burkitt 2022
The pub window has a winter scene painted
across it. White line illustrations of ale and wine
bottles dangle like decorations above a skyline
of a town that looks like the one I’m in.
A four inch snowman stands next to a three storey
house topped with snow dripping
down like icing on a trendy wedding cake.
The house has a door I can picture you closing
to keep the warm air from getting out.
I bet you’re happy in there. It’s nice to imagine
you growing up without a motorbike license,
struggling to fit your latest food delivery
in the freezer, play fighting over the TV remote
with kids you will never meet.
© Carl Burkitt 2022
There’s a green, felt dinosaur
hanging off the Christmas tree.
It was placed there by someone
yet to be told they are extinct.
I think about hearing what a T-Rex is
and feeling safe because the people
in my home don’t seem to be scared.
I think about living in a world
made of absolute fact and certainty.
I think about being told I am a beautiful boy,
knowing it has only been said because it is true.
© Carl Burkitt 2022
They’re sprinkled across rooftops
of Costa, Oxfam, the school uniform shop,
like electric blue bird poo. Little fingers
point up at them and wonder
if anything is ever the same when you wake up.
There’s a Christmas tree bigger than our house
with baubles as big as Ford Fiestas
and I’m thinking about the size of the axe
that took this thing down.
© Carl Burkitt 2022
She sits and sips her festive latte,
the kind with flavoured syrup like cinnamon
or gingerbread or glittered winterberry.
The froth is shaped like Santa’s beard
and she can’t stop flicking through
a notebook her eyebrows seem to hate.
Her phone rings, her tongue tuts,
her finger presses the green button.
She says things like Forecasting and VAT
and doodles a dead reindeer on a napkin.
© Carl Burkitt 2022
I spend hours in the pub
listening to strangers talking to each other
picturing sitting on their sofa
drinking the cheapest beer from ASDA,
chewing on oven-cooked cheese pizzas
(because it’s the quickest thing to do)
while asking where they got their cutlery from,
pointing out the number of condiments
stacked in their fridge door and nodding
at the photo on the wall of a mate
we both miss with all our bones
and then one of them says a sentence
and I’m back in the pub remembering
it’s best to be on your own sometimes.
© Carl Burkitt 2022
I like standing in service stations
pretending I know how to drive a car.
I walk around the table of books
in WHSmith with my hands behind my back
twiddling my fingers as if I’m holding keys.
I nod knowingly at blokes
who say things like Good to stop for a bit.
I put my fists on my hips and yell
as I arch my back like Dad
on the way to Devon or Wales.
I order a large caffeinated breakfast tea
to say This should see me through.
I start conversations in McDonald’s queues
about A roads and how it’s difficult
to keep a toddler busy in the back of the car
but how his smile in the rear view mirror
is a punch to the part of me that always thought
I could teach him how to drive a car
and keep himself safe.
© Carl Burkitt 2022
Carl tells tales 