Jason Statham is in Costa Coffee
eating a shortbread biscuit. He’s already
chopped it in two with his talented punching hands
and is telling anyone who will listen
about the subtlety of his performance
in the film Snatch. “I could’ve been the bare
knuckle boxer played by Brad Pitt,” he growls
at a group of mums with prams catching up
after their weekly baby class, “but it’s important
to stretch yourself sometimes, you know.”
He orders a third double espresso and asks
the tattooed guy behind the till if he even remembers
Stephen Graham in that film, ignoring the pay machine.
“Of course you don’t,” interrupts Statham,
“I stole every bleedin’ scene.”

Carl Burkitt 2024

Written while listening to ‘Golden Brown’ by The Stranglers.

I was taught how to shave in a caravan in Devon.
My parents were getting ready to go out
and play Scrabble with their best friends

but Dad took 10 minutes to explain the importance
of dabbing hot water on my teenage neck
and barely ready cheeks, chin, and top lip –

before applying shaving foam – to prevent dirt
and dead cells clogging up his expensive blade.
“Go in the direction the hair grows,” he said

and I imagined the girls back home
being impressed with the way I followed instruction.
I sloshed the finished razor in the mini sink

the way Grandad would have done in the RAF
or Uncle Jim in the middle of the Gulf War.
In the night, I felt uncut fluff on my bottom lip,

reached for the razor and hacked in the dark.
“Girls like scars,” Dad said, passing tissues
for the blood gathering on my smile.

Carl Burkitt 2024

Written while listening to ‘King of Carrot Flowers Pt. 1’ by Neutral Milk Hotel.

Bottles of WKD Blue are wearing off
while silver buckled black loafers
are upside down on the landing.
A Pot Noodle is brewing on the desk
next to highlighted AS Geography revision
and Eurosport is playing German football
on a perfectly square 12-inch TV.
It’s 3am. Wet look gel continues
to make a naturally curly fringe
as straight as a soldier blending in.
The Pot Noodle is ready now.
It’s chicken and mushroom
and life, no matter what the ache
in the very tip of your skull thinks,
will never be as wonderful.

Carl Burkitt 2024

Written while listening to ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine’ by Guns N’ Roses.

She enters the room like a surprise
bass drum in the middle of a song
you thought you knew every note of.
BOOM.
Let’s go sit in a park and talk about our fears
of spiders and being falsely imprisoned.
BOOM.
Let’s buy a dog from a bloke at a bus stop.
BOOM.
Let’s swap books about mass killings.
BOOM.
Let’s feed some goats in a city farm
and have a son in six years who loves trains
and hold hands at funerals and eat cake
and gossip on car journeys across the world.
BOOM.

Carl Burkitt 2024

Written while listening to ‘Stuck On You’ by Meiko.

Cool dads do not exist in this house.
We take off our tops and beat our chests
pretending to be gorillas
managing a breakfast cafe
if it means getting cereal into you
without a fight.
We sit on train station toilet floors
transcribing the hedgehog story you must capture
if it means you’ll take a dump
before we go for a walk.
We worry and moan and cry and scream
and punch and tear at our skin
behind closed doors
if it means turning your mouth
into a hot air balloon smile
floating you towards sun and only sun.

Carl Burkitt 2024

Written while listening to ‘Float On’ by Modest Mouse.

You’ve got boy band written all over you today,
black skinny jeans and the dance move freedom
of no-one watching. You are the tall one at the back
who can’t sing, but with the torso to pull off
the no top and thin chain look. Your stage is
the flat window overlooking the audience of
our little town. A nest of birds stuffed in the chimney
of a secondhand furniture shop are chirping with you,
reminding you to keep singing,
especially when people are watching.

Carl Burkitt 2024

Written while listening to ‘The Man Who Can’t Be Moved’ by The Script.

A woolly mammoth charges into Cheadle Hulme
Costa Coffee and whacks a few cheese sandwiches
across the cafe before they had the chance
to become toasties. It plunges a tusk
into a triple chocolate muffin
and the other one into the barnet of a bloke
pretending to write a novel. A queue of customers
start running towards the exit and the staff
apologise profusely. A lady near the back of the room
doesn’t flinch. She sips her decaf latte
and gestures to the empty seat beside her
with an open palm. The mammoth drops its trunk
onto her table and slaps her lemon drizzle cake
off its plate. The mammoth growls and the lady
gives it the space to keep growling
until it’s ready to join her in a game of Code Words.

Carl Burkitt 2024

Written while listening to ‘Send Me On My Way’ by Rusted Root.

I sip fruity ale and say it rained in London –
the sort of rain you couldn’t see through
or the kind a film character would have to
hold a newspaper above their head
while running from the bus to the office.
I say it rained harder and longer growing up
down south between summers of pogo sticks
and drawing wonky tennis courts on cul de sacs
with Jason’s dad’s chalk. I say it rained
one Christmas Day. I sat in my room and played
Crash Bandicoot with one hand
in a tub of Salt and Vinegar Pringles. It’s true,
it rains every single day up here,
for at least 20 seconds. It’s important for my son
to see it come and go and to see me
let it wash down my face.

Carl Burkitt 2024

Written while listening to ‘Tears Are In Your Eyes’ by Yo La Tengo.

There’s a chunk out of my left shin
from a log or slide or swing from a dead park
I can’t remember. There’s a white scar
on my big toe from a glass bomb stacking
the dishwasher in the break of EastEnders
or Heartbeat or Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night
Takeaway I can’t remember. There’s a flash
in my skull from a pogo stick or a tennis racquet
or the sword of a 13-year-old pirate I can’t remember.
There’s a fallen bridge over an ancient stream
leading to a rejected kiss I can’t remember.
There’s a front door in my chest to a house
with the bedroom of a goalkeeper who stood
by my side until the air was stolen from his legs
and I can’t remember what I can’t remember.

Carl Burkitt 2024

Written while listening to ‘I’m On Your Side’ by Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats.