in the room
next to the one I’m in.
It moves to the sound
of a pack of carrot puffs
opening.
It is the size of a fist
of a creature
with small fists.
It doesn’t know
what it is, but it knows
to keep going.
© Carl Burkitt 2021
There are sunflowers
on the table in our flat,
sitting bright yellow and open
staring at me every time
I walk into the living room.
They don’t know who I am.
They don’t know what they are.
They are just sitting.
They are open.
They are yellow.
They are open.
© Carl Burkitt 2021
yelling at the cinematographer
in my mind who won’t stop
standing in my way.
© Carl Burkitt 2021
It was a cup of tea:
steam in all the right places,
milk making it biscuit brown,
cup with a badger on the side
and a handle ideal for fingers.
The was no reason
for it to feel as heavy as the room
we were in,
but my wrist buckled
like a soggy Rich Tea
until my jaw did the same.
© Carl Burkitt 2021
My son’s forehead protrudes
like a crash helmet.
There’s not a blemish on it.
It’s soft like the padding
of a brand new goalie glove.
I imagine it growing freckles.
I imagine it growing into the shape
of an Arsenal Football Club canon.
I imagine it growing across the road
outside a midnight country pub.
Today your skin has been gone
longer than it was here
for us to really get to know it.
I imagine it growing.
© Carl Burkitt 2021
I’m not Harry Kane, no.
My back hurts. There’s a knot
in my hip tied up from all sorts.
I’d like to see Harry Kane
in this wrestling T-shirt and slippers though
lifting this sofa over a brick wall
wondering if this is what it takes
to make friends in your 30s.
© Carl Burkitt 2021
She got him back.
His pram was sitting neatly
in front of the display of chops.
Not to worry, the butcher said.
We knew you’d return.
And she did, her heart punching her chest,
sweat beads gathering like customer eyes
looking at livers and kidneys,
her calf muscles tender and panicked.
I feel my skin most days
looking for things I should be doing,
forgetting the things I believe,
wondering when it will fall off
my bones and drag my memory
to the floor.
© Carl Burkitt 2021
Your hair is slicked back
and your cheeks could sell
a second hand car with ease.
People seem to smile
when your face walks
on to a drizzly forecourt.
Your singing voice is a punch
to the lungs.
I think about Janine
pushing you
off the edge of a cliff
and the shape of your laugh
disappearing.
© Carl Burkitt 2021
We don’t sell tea anymore
because people said they hated it.
I’d only ordered chips.
© Carl Burkitt 2021
The road has brand new tarmac,
Riz Ahmed is losing
his hearing in Sound of Metal,
Sainsbury’s stop selling
their veggie rainbow stew,
a baby learns
to bang his head on the floor,
an Italian restaurant closes down,
seven become five,
a goalkeeper stops
turning up.
Things just happen.
Like that.
© Carl Burkitt 2021
Carl tells tales 