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Carl Burkitt 2024

Written while listening to ‘Call On Me’ by Eric Prydz.

and I tell you we were playing badminton.
You were a grown up with arms like your uncle’s
and a smile surrounded by a beard thicker than mine.
You were beating me and I was out of breath
but we’d organised a 5km run together
after our match and you were desperate
to drive me somewhere in your red car.
You wanted to choose the music
and make me my favourite pizza
in your house with a garden and three cats.
You had a dream
you went on a train with your mummy.

Carl Burkitt 2024

Written while listening to ‘You Make My Dreams (Come True)’ by Hall & Oates.

He can’t tell anyone
that winter is his favourite season
because everybody loves the sunshine.
They call his dark nights
miserable and refuse to imagine
walking with no coat on,
boots crunching frosted pavements
louder than the thoughts in his head.
There’s only so many layers
you can take off when you’re hot
and it is frowned upon
to peel your skin off on the beach.

Carl Burkitt 2024

‘Everybody Loves the Sunshine’ by Roy Ayers.

I think about the songwriters
who have the guts to just sing
the exact words they are thinking.
“I love you”, they will say
instead of talking about socks
being unballed before being washed
then being balled up again after being dried
or coconut milk swapped
for an alternative in a new recipe
or popping black heads for a laugh
or researching local therapy options and not
bringing it up until the time is right
or watching Philomena again for a cry
or popping white heads for a laugh.
“I love you,” they will say.

Carl Burkitt 2024

Written while listening to ‘Not Alone’ by The Indelicates.

There he goes fall

ing into my silly heart.

Carl Burkitt 2024

Written while listening to ‘Free Falling’ by Tom Petty.

I guess we’ll never grow up
if we sit in our separate offices
for 20 years sharing music
that taught us to grieve alone.
I remember the first pair of jeans
you told me to buy. My legs
never looked longer and my arse
never tighter. I will never know
the things we said but they still exist
in the ears of teenagers who knew
nothing and absolutely everything.
I can see them now, dancing
in West Swindon until the moon
had the confidence to put a full stop
on our movie reviews and ability
to keep each other safe in the knowledge
we know what we’re doing.

Carl Burkitt 2024

Written while listening too ‘Beautiful Strangers’ by Kevin Morby.

Screw it,
I’ve got my school shirt untucked
and my tie is looser than it was this morning.
Some of the lads are talking about drugs
and how they smashed up a For Sale sign
outside a neighbour’s house last night.
I’m waiting for English class to start
wondering when Kurt Cobain will be added
to the syllabus and slagging off the dinner ladies
for not letting me have more than two
battered sausages at snack time.
Some of the lads are talking about drugs
and how they put a football through
a shop window last night. I was considering
doing some graffiti on my desk with a Biro
but Sir’s just arrived.

Carl Burkitt 2024

Written while listening to ‘Polly’ by Nirvana.

At your 10th birthday party
your dad stuck a noodle so far up his nose
it poked down into his mouth. He grabbed
the nostril end with one hand,
the tonsil end with the other and
“flossed his brain”. We laughed like we invented it.
For the seven lunchtimes in a row
after that day, you threw my pears
into the sand pit and stood on my yogurts.
When Facebook told me your heart stopped
suddenly in the night 20 years later,
I’m glad all I could think about was the noodle.

Carl Burkitt 2024

Written while listening to ‘Playground Love’ by Air.

You climb into your parents’ bed,
sit between their yawns and sing
how London Bridge is falling down.
You tell them you were born in London
and there is another bridge in London
called Tower Bridge and that is your favourite
but you don’t think there’s a song about that
so you keeping singing about London Bridge
falling down. You ask how small you were
when you lived in London and your parents remember
a body the length of three Oyster Cards.
They remember eyes wider than a gap to mind
and a flat too small to hold all the love handed
to them by a St. George after seven blurred days.
“Oh no!” you say before running to your room
and returning with a stuffed Ben Big toy
taller than your time as a cockney.

Carl Burkitt 2024

Written while listening to ‘London Bridge’ by The Teskey Brothers.

When I step in grass wearing no shoes or socks
I pretend I know how to play the guitar
and can cook red lentils
without making them too mushy.
I tell people the names of trees,
the purpose of moths, the shapes of constellations.
As my toes sink into soil
I forget the way I like freshly ironed shirts
or how the thought of having to pack a bag
for just one night away dissolves my spine.
When me heels dig into the world
I can start a fire with only my thumbs
and long for a fish to catch with my bare palms.

Carl Burkitt 2024

Written while listening to ‘The Creggan White Hare’ by Daoirí Farrell.