Traffic lights are too high up
for the invisible driver to spot.
It doesn’t matter, there a fewer cars
than dinosaurs in Christmas jumpers
on the street right now. The remote control
monster truck is red and orange like fire
or the centre of a toddler’s eyeball.
A scooter with a middle aged man
slugs its way toward the park.
Morning! his mouth tries
as the clock in the top left of our video call
to a pair of surprise Jack in a boxes
says Afternoon.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

Keep running. Get your knees
up past your ears. Punch thick air.
Breathe in through your nose
and out of your mouth. Let the tarmac
know you are there. Show the buses
you are made from metal and fuel.
Tell your skin it is lucky
to be wrapped around you. Run,
whatever that means to you.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

Have a rest. Grab a coffee.
Pop your lips around some pastry.
Slalom around Wet Floor signs.
Shake your head at chocolate prices.
Watch people rubbing their eyes
and wonder where they’re running to
or running from. Grab a coffee. Have a rest.
Imagine you’re on a new planet.
Talk to someone. Smile at someone.
Think about where you’re running.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

We watch the future
fall
and we melt
to the heat
of screams
designed
to keep us alive.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

I went to your funeral today
while you were cooking fajitas.
You chopped red onions
and I let the shower water
trickle down my face
as I gently nodded at everyone
arriving in ill-fitted black suits
and hats as wide as wholemeal wraps
and the words of a future speech formed
in my head like shampoo suds in curly hair.
The red flesh of a pepper looks sour
on the days we have no hot water.

© Carl Burkitt

A reckless leaf takes a dive
to the ground. Three more
join and gather around it
the way ground workers do
when their mate is head first
down a man hole
on the edge of a road.
A laugh of wind
lifts the first leaf into the air
for its pals to correct
its mistakes and wish it luck.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

The bloke
in the wardrobe door
is flat and out of ideas.
The hair on his head
has had as much death
as it has had life and
there’s a red mark growing
under his eye. He’ll pretend
it was from a punch
to make him sound exciting.
He’ll tell no one about
the way he cannot
stomach shifts in plans
as easily as before;
when he wasn’t just the bloke
in the wardrobe door.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

milk chocolate on salt and vinegar Pringles,
hand-cleared sections on a fogged mirror
scattered at different heights,
cheese melted across knackered chips,
the wings of butterflies,
the smell of a new toilet air freshener,
emergency contacts for a future nightmare,
dust on untouched bookshelves,
names on loft boxes.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

The mystic melts into a cup of tea
like seeing Yoko Ono eating marmalade on toast.
The afternoon’s belly is exposed
beneath one hand holding a crossword
and crumbs tucked into a beard.
Our bones are held together
by mundane moments and extraordinary reality.
What would you like for Christmas?
I’m afraid my sack might not be big enough
to carry your hopes for the future,
but all I can do is try.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

You run with your shoulders
higher than your ears. Your neck
points your eyes at that beautiful colour
and that beautiful colour and that beautiful colour.
Your feet are hooves, ice skates, a slow winter.
Your fingers point at the four corners
with intent, the crowd want you there.
Your skin is a singlet; pink and green Lycra
ricocheting off walls you forget you can see
desperate to move forward, desperate
to get thicker.

© Carl Burkitt 2021