I’ve always eaten the crusts on my sandwiches.
10.5 in trainers, 11 in football boots, 12 in wellies.
The weather is fine up here.
It’s called vitiligo.
I was about 18 and 2 months old.
Daniel Bryan.
A chippendale or lead singer of Status Quo.
Roast dinner.
Being falsely imprisoned.
It depends when you ask,
but right now Salt and Vinegar.
I think about him every day,
it doesn’t matter how long you know someone.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

There’s a framed picture of Frank Sinatra
frowning at a toddler
nailed wonkily to the wall
above a knackered juke box
playing Babyshambles on repeat.
The 70s wallpaper has chunks missing
and I can see at least three rusty pipes
behind the Japanese gins and American ales.
The exposed brick is crying damp.
Tripled cooked chips are sitting
in the middle of greasy upside down hats,
beetroot ketchup is dripping through the gaps.
There ain’t a smile in the gaff
and everyone feels at home.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

I love how old you are.
I love how smooth you are.
I love how you keep going.
I love how secure you make me feel.
I love how you just decided
furniture is allowed to be fun.
I love how you keep going.
I love how you remind me of the sea.
I love thinking about being with you
on the porch drinking homemade lemonade
growing old and creaking together.
I love how you keep going.
I hate how often I imagine you rocking
in the dark with no one sitting on you.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

I’m a volunteer chippendale
doing it for the adrenaline,
doing it in the windows
between metre readings
and learning about tax.
I’m a volunteer chippendale.
It started out to Status Quo
then James Bond themes
and now nursery rhymes.
I like watching my skin
that at one stage didn’t know how
to use a tin opener or put socks on
make shapes that don’t have names,
doing it in the windows
of self esteem.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

Your
posture
is a
thumbs up
to
everything
you’ve
learned
in 8 months.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

When I heard the piano tuner was coming
I was expecting a little metal can
with tiny black and white keys and wooden legs.
Not really, but it helps the days go by.
A 10-year old once asked me
how I got to their house from London
and I said By giraffe
and her best mate whispered He’s lying
and the walls melted and reformed
into the shape of the wagging finger
of a worn out teacher saying
That’s what you get
for thinking you’re better than you are.
Not really, but it’s how my days go by.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

I am scared
about the rate your forehead is growing.
Why are your ears the way that they are?
It’s not actually that impressive what you just did.
I am scared of your eyes in the baby monitor.
When will look after yourself?
You are not perfect company.
This is difficult.
Today would be easier without you.
This is difficult.
I am a normal, well-rounded person
for having these thoughts because
they can co-exist with the thought that
you are every beat of my heart.
Shut up.
Just shut up.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

I cleaned my skin today
with something called Prince Charming.
I tried to think of clever lines
like it washed the frog away from last night
or it had the scent of a glass slipper fetish
or it gave my skin a feeling of undeserved power,
but all I could think about was the Adam Ant song
in the Pimms advert with Alexander Armstrong
and the weeks after you died
and how we requested it from nightclub DJs
so we could cause a scene and get kicked out
just for anything else to talk about.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

I built a train track with six drooped curves.
The pieces were grey and dark grey and black
and stretched across the beige carpet
underneath a dining table I don’t own
and a piano I can’t play.
I watched the red automatic train
know exactly where it was going.
The little smiling driver in the cabin
was covered in blue.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

In 2018 I was trampled by cows.
People say things and move on
with no clue about the day they’ve exploded.
The dishwasher can’t exist
when I don’t know
how many cows stepped on her.
The teeth my son hasn’t grown yet
are every bone I imagine she broke.
I can’t watch the telly
until I’ve been told every cow’s name
and whether or not they were actually bulls.
The cars outside my house have udders,
the postman is a rump steak.
How can I ever walk on grass again?

© Carl Burkitt 2021