I feel at home inside a bag of chips.
A hundred spud fingers holding me with their salty prints,
the walls so greasy you can see through them
like my skin when I’m nervous.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

Every day this week a man about my age
has walked past my window wearing plum jogging bottoms
and a matching plum hoodie, empty handed.
On his return journey he always has a newspaper
under his right arm, an orange Lucozade under his left
and he nibbles on a packet of Doritos Chilli Heatwave.
I wonder what he does at home all day.
Maybe he potters about tidying up the garden,
practices drawing with fine liners, collects stamps,
fiddles with frayed bits of the carpet with his big toe,
looks at photos of dead loved ones.
Maybe he sits on the sofa counting down the seconds
until he gets his paper, orange Lucozade
and packet of Doritos Chilli Heatwave.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

There was a massive crow stood on the branch
of the recently blossomed tree
outside my living room window today.
A right plump bugger just
pecking at leaves, not pecking at leaves,
pecking at leaves, not pecking at leaves.
Watching it potter about with no plan of action
was relaxing. It was my personal feathered
stress ball on pipe cleaner legs.
Thirty seconds in to me watching it,
the crow froze still and looked up.
Its eyes stayed fixed on the endless blue.
I imagined it dreaming of painting shapes
across the sky canvas with the bristles of its wings.
And then it pooped down to Earth.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

I can’t play a musical instrument
but I pat my stomach like a bongo most days.
I remember when my ribs were xylophones.
I have a bum trumpet and pianoless piano fingers.
My toes are floorboard drumsticks,
my elbows are delicate triangles
and my armpit hairs vibrate like guitar strings.
My eyes feel like bass drums, battered every
second of the day. When I close them at night
I hear cymbals.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

My bedroom light switch is wired
the wrong way round. Up is on, down is off.
Every now and then, when my sleepy finger flicks the light off, the downward motion
makes the sun come up in Swindon,
bouncier than my red and yellow pogo stick.
I can smell chocolate spread on toast
and hear Right Said Fred downstairs.
I find a tenner under my skateboard,
chip my shins on logs, lose face skin on gravel.
I look in the mirror, clear my throat,
and practice saying Is Jason in? without stuttering.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

I’m not a white head spot popping kind of guy.
Puss has never been my game.
But squeezing the black heads on my nose
until a family of tiny worms wiggle their way free
totally hypnotises me. I wonder what they used to be.
Crisp grease? Filthy London air?
A build up of horrid catchy songs
grooving out for another dance?
If I could climb in my pores and have
a nose around, I would. Just to see why
all the grime is so desperate to stay inside me.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

A tiny thug kicked me in the hand.
It had no cause for violence
but went for it six times.
It had never even met me
but clearly knew all about me.
Each smack was a brush stroke
across a painting I thought was finished.
If my hand was a football it would’ve punctured.
If my fingers were piñatas they’d be
a thousand flying toffees.
I kept going back for more
but the tiny thug kept me waiting.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

I spent the day hiding in a woollen beanie.
It covered my head like cling film round leftover meat.
When I walked by my living room mirror
I caught a curl trying to escape
from my cranium tea cosy.
It looked like it didn’t know what it was doing
so I shoved it back undercover.
Two hours later the mirror told me
the curl had made its way out again.
I liked its spirit, so I shoved it back under again
to teach the rest of those hairs a thing or two.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

Having a glass of water when I’m hungry
is one of my favourite things.
It works best when I’m hungover or ill.
Feeling the coolness trickle down
my dry body tube and splosh
at the base of my empty stomach
is like a penny full of wishes falling
through a well.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

I saw a heart today.
It was terrifying and disgusting and beautiful.
It was a thousand years old and a million
years old and zero years old.
It was a sprint, a moment of panic, a house
full of people jumping from behind the sofa
at a surprise party. It was an earthquake,
popping candy, a strip of bubble wrap.
It lived inside layers of flesh I’ve never met
inside layers of flesh I always hoped to.

© Carl Burkitt 2020