I wonder if
the knobhead at Netflix
who invented the automatic play feature
when you hover over
a show or film in the menu
will ever see their life
flash before their eyes.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

I don’t do magic tricks.
My wife’s hay fever is too strong
to pull flowers out of my sleeves,
my big ears would swallow money,
I daren’t damage my hats with rabbits,
I’m too scared
to make some things disappear
and I don’t suit a tailcoat.
But I have stopped sawing myself in half:
it wasn’t doing me any good.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

My phone charger hates me.
There’s no other explanation.
There’s no way it doesn’t like its job,
it was born to do it.
It can’t feel the cold
or be allergic to dust
or dislike the sound of traffic
or dislike being trodden on
or dislike being called names
or be desperate for something
more out of life
because it is inanimate.
My phone charger hates me.
There’s no other explanation.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

I’m scraping black beans off a pot
thinking about you
playing with a spatula in the bath.
When anyone drinks a glass of water
your mouth opens in awe
and your legs bounce like springs.
Today you spent 10 minutes
giggling at a microwave.
You find the world hilarious,
like the time I was sat at the dinner table
silently staring at a Zoom meeting
telling me I was being made redundant.
You were lying on the floor,
chewing a Now TV remote,
laughing at the ceiling.
I am your apprentice.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

Written using sentences found by searching for ‘dust’ in my WhatsApp search bar.

My house is an ice palace
of dust and passive aggression.
I left my window open
to air all the dust generated.
Now the dust has settled,
sweep all of it up with a dustpan and brush,
dust off my disco ball,
coax a song from your dusty throat;
When I’m rudely awoken by the dustmen.
I love the amount of tasty dust on your fingers,
you simply have dust for hands.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

Clutching knackered fridges,
yanked out tree stumps,
murky stained mattresses,
rusted mountain bikes,
lumps of useless rock
above their heads,
the men at the tip
had smiles longer than a white van
offloading their rubbish
in a safe space.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

He had two eyes at the front of his face
behind his glasses. There was brown hair
on his head and his chin.
His skin was attached
to his biceps and his neck.
There was a belt around his waist
and a white t-shirt over his chest
and a Nike tick on his black trainers
and the sky was above him.
The four fingers and thumb on his right hand
were wrapped around the Easter egg
he was eating like an apple
as if the world only had one day left.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

There are three empty beer cans
on your high chair
and I don’t know if I’m cool.
My hips hurt.
I don’t care if my football teams lose.
I’ve got more than one lint roller.
I can’t pack a bag
for a weekend without crying
over indecision.
Some mornings I look out the window
and salute to strangers.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

You don’t know how to tell us what’s wrong
so you scream until the lightbulbs shake.
We have to teach you how to talk.
We have to teach you ABCs.
We have to teach you the difference
between satsuma and tangerine.
We have to teach you all the dog breeds.
We have to teach you metaphors are paint brushes
and similes are like metaphors.
We have to teach you where people go.
We have to teach you about space
and the importance of having it and giving it.
We have to teach you how to say Pringles.
We have to teach you to take it easy on yourself.
We have to teach you
that we don’t know what we’re doing.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

I asked,
Do you have an approachable face mask?
She said,
I’ve been working on it for 30 years.
We laughed.
We had to.

© Carl Burkitt 2021