My nostrils cried gravy.
My skin was pastry
holding a mix of unnamed meat
and gone-off cubed potatoes.
My stomach was a lonely bin.
The devil scoffed hot food
on a windows-shut bus.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

If Toy Story could happen in real life
but with body parts instead of toys,
I wonder which characters my bits would be.
Woody is an obvious one.
My spindly pins would be Slinky Dog.
My arse cheeks would be Mr and Mrs Potatohead –
almost identical but one nicer than the other.
My futuristic thumbs are Buzz Lightyear,
making my dusty fingers jealous.
My Pringles gut is Hamm.
I’d love to say my nervous system is Bo Beep,
but we all know it’s Rex.
My brain can be Sid sometimes, which is a shame,
but I try my best to have three eyes and green skin.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

A strawberry Cornetto wrapper.
Double figures worth of houseplants.
Bending bookshelves.
An 18 month old pumpkin.
The set-list from a daydream evening.
Miniature llama dungarees stuffed with a future.
Occupied ring fingers.
A firework in pyjamas.
The reflection of a hairy boy
who doesn’t know how he got here.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

I’m hungry. I think.
I want to bite
the invisible blowy thing
on the other side of the door.
My nose is wet,
but I feel sick.
Maybe they’re tears.
My legs aren’t working.
A moving tail
isn’t the full story.
I’m hungry. I think.
I keep going in circles.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

I’m watching David Bowie
drinking milk from a carton
in the back of a limousine
wearing a cowboy hat
listening to Aretha Franklin.
I’m drinking milk from a pint glass
sat on the sofa
wearing a wrestling t-shirt
listening to David Bowie
drinking milk from a carton
in the back of a limousine
wearing a cowboy hat
listening to Aretha Franklin.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

Every human is unique
but trousers are sold
in just a handful of sizes.
I often think about people
with the same jeans as me
and wonder where they sit
to remind themselves to keep going.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

If every day was sports day
I’d back myself in the egg and spoon race.
Or some sort of hula hoop challenge,
if the hula hoops were the Beef flavoured kind.
I’d fancy myself in the hop, skip
and jump-to-conclusions
then curl up in a sack
like a knackered potato.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

From time
to time to time
I spend my time
as a pair of hands
on a clock that’s
slowly running
out of batteries.
A tired bird,
cuckooless.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

A bomb of teeth and arm hair
exploded in our kitchen.
A smiling lion with a lanyard
teased out our tortoise heads.
Torn jeans and a scuffed collared t-shirt
from the wardrobe of a distant universe
took its first steps in our atmosphere.
A whistling Harrison Ford
burst through our tomb
and dusted off our fossilised
social bones with Hello.
A gas engineer
inspected our boiler today.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

When I was little
I wanted to be a Chippendale.
I used to take my pants off
in the living room
to a Status Quo VHS.
I never got paid –
side hustles
hadn’t been invented yet.

© Carl Burkitt 2020