He’s being interviewed about winning the Wimbledon men’s tennis final. The interviewer licks her dry lips and asks what it’s like to be a hometown hero, but he bats it away quickly with the fact he only lived in Wimbledon for six months during the 2020 Covid pandemic before moving away. “I couldn’t tell you what it was like,” he says, “but apparently I used to sit in my high chair at the window and watch the buses go by”. The interviewer smiles at his Manchester accent and asks who is responsible for his success. He takes a bite out of a plain Dairy Milk chocolate bar and thinks about his mum.

Carl Burkitt 2025

I’m drinking strong lager next to two women who have never been in this pub before. The lady in the leopard print top and leopard print Converse shoes tells her friend in the grey skin that she was recommended this place by a colleague because of its famous cheese dumplings. The woman in grey skin melts into a thousand colours as she says she knows because the food in this pub saved her life during a particularly low period. I think about leaning over and telling them that I have known the head chef for 27 years, but decide not to make this poem all about me.

Carl Burkitt 2025

Everybody freezes
like they’re a criminal,
except the bloke with
a stolen bottle of red wine
hidden in his pocket.
He gives me a stained wink
and offers me a sip outside
in the carpark
while trolley boys panic.

Carl Burkitt 2025

A stranger keeps putting their dog’s poo
into my garden waste wheelie bin.
So today I put my garden waste into her dog:
leaves in the mouth, bark up the bum,
grass up the nose, conker shells in the ears.
Only joking.
I just waved as she did it again
and wondered how she talks to her children.

Carl Burkitt 2025

[TINY TERRY dives head first into a cup of tea. Fortunately, Tiny Terry has his miniature Spider-Man armbands on so he has a joyous swim through the boiling hot drink. He giggles as he wiggles his toes and splashes about. A chocolate biscuit dips into the cup and Tiny Terry takes a bite before backstroking in circles a thousand times with a smile on his face.]

TINY TERRY: YIPEEEEEEEE!

[Hahaha none of this happened, of course.]

[Curtain]

Carl Burkitt 2025

For Pauline

Some poems don’t need to be clever.
Sometimes they just need to be
about someone who likes to look at the sea.
Someone who doesn’t know why
she likes to look at the sea.
Someone who doesn’t know
what makes her just look at the sea.
Someone who gets lost in the repetition of
the waves as she looks at the sea.
Someone who knows she is tiny in this gigantic world
and is lucky to be alive at the same time as the sea,
the sea she likes to look at

Carl Burkitt 2025

[MICHAEL and MIKE are hugging.]

MICHAEL: I love you, Michael.

MIKE: Please, call me Mike.

MICHAEL: No.

[Curtain]

Carl Burkitt 2025

[LARRY bought a new lamp for his new bedside table in his new bedroom in his new house in his new street in his new town in his new country in his new continent.]

LARRY: That’ll do.

[Larry laughed or cried thinking about his wife who left him or died.]

[Curtain]

Carl Burkitt 2025

[THE RUNNER is running in the park.]

[Curtain]

[Curtain reopens]

[Sorry, I forgot to say The Runner is completely on fire.]

[Curtain]

Carl Burkitt 2025

The lifeguard has been asked to help
clearing the tables in the health club café.
The red of his shorts are ketchup smears
on lowdown, fake leather booth seats.
His yellow t-shirt is a squashed chip on his flip flop
and his shoulders are diving bricks sinking.
I ask what he prefers:
saving vulnerable kids in pools
or saving grumpy adults from messy tables?
He says,
“They are two very different things,”
and I watch our conversation drown
like his thumb in that pot of leftover beans.

Carl Burkitt 2025