Up and down.
Up and down.
Your lungs are welcome
to my share of oxygen.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

The man had three separate name badges.
One was clipped to his navy blue tracksuit jacket,
one was clipped to his lime green polo shirt,
one was clipped to his charcoal jeans.
Each one said Brian.
I wonder if his mates call him Brian Brian Brian.
Or Tri Bri or 3B or Triple Briple,
or Once, Twice, Three Times a Brian.
I wonder if they call him at all.
I wonder if they ask him how he is.
I wonder if they listen.
I wonder if they make him feel seen
as much as he’d like.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

There’s a little stack of unread books
sitting on a white, wooden unit in the living room.
They could be about absolutely anything.
Fire. Guns. The tale of a tree’s lifetime.
Wizards. Darts. Facts about jungles.
Perhaps there’s a young boy in one of them
desperate to learn how to ride a bike.
There’s probably death in one.
And fireworks. And chocolate.
Those untouched pages could be filled with worlds
made of first times and tumbling walls.
There could be terrified lions, broken watches,
roads leading to doors leading to rivers.
There’s definitely death in one.
There must be death in one.
I can feel it.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

I like combing my beard and thinking about
what historic bearded men thought about
when combing theirs. I imagine Abraham Lincoln
pulling out in-growing hairs and pondering
tomorrow’s breakfast; Karl Marx wiping milk
off his moustache, struggling to remember if he
locked the front door; Charles Darwin playing with
his sideburns and wondering if a newborn baby
will remember accidentally being sworn at;
Leonardo de Vinci separating split ends and bringing
you back to life in the mirror; Sophocles fiddling
with his goatee trying to work out the difference
between a clementine and a tangerine.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

There’s a dead pigeon
on the path outside my front gate
and I’m desperate
to write something
to do it justice,
but I can’t.
All I can think about is you
on the side of the road
surrounded by feathers,
the world walking around your body
giving you a wide berth.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

From BBQ sauce
to treacle
to caramel
to mint sauce
to pesto
to piccalilli
to Colman’s
to Dijon
to scrambled egg.
Your bumhole
is the most confusing
Pokémon in the world.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

I watched a stranger walk in the rain
as if nothing was falling from the sky.
She bounced down the street,
her vest and short shorts drowning,
her flip-flops splish-sploshing,
her sun-cream dripping
down her red raw forearms.
Her smiling teeth were deckchairs
draped in grey cloud towels.
Perhaps it wasn’t raining,
perhaps the sun was finally melting.
Perhaps she was a ghost
given a short window to feel again.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

Today we picked up Thor’s hammer with our pinkies.
We swam in a volcano and emerged with Teflon skin.
We juggled a piranha, a chainsaw and an egg.
Today we killed all the birds with zero stones
and bought them all back to life.
We turned water into wine.
We turned whine into silence.
Today we blew up the sun.
We replaced our eyes with stars.
We tickled the tummy of a lion.
Today we took the devil out for dinner
and made him pay the bill.
Today we only just got started.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

Wore a vest.
Winked at a 16-inch free standing fan.
Had three showers.
Changed my boxer shorts four times.
Swore at a nail in a floorboard.
Stuck a finger up at the sky.
Stared at a set of lungs.
Looked for answers in the white dots
on a nose that hasn’t decided whose it is yet.
Imagined the smile your children would’ve had
and wondered if you ever saw a heatwave.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

I once called a train guard the worst word
I could have possibly called him when he shut
the door at departure time and didn’t let me on.
I bought him a Twix in my one hour wait
to apologise but I think about it most days.
I once slammed a 4am kebab shop door shut
when the man told me they had no chips.
I think about it most days.
I’ve lost count how many times I’ve tutted
into the eyes of a stranger behind a bar
when I’m 10 seconds late for last orders.
I think about each tut most days.
I don’t want to shout at the sky and wish you were a snow flake sent to tuck me
into bed and relax my skin with a lullaby
because you’re only doing your job
and I’ve got too much to think about.

© Carl Burkitt 2020