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
I left a glass of tap water out for so long
my warm desk made it look sparkling.
Window light bubbles floated still
like tiny tourists on spherical see-through lilos.
I moved it into the shade like a skinny beverage god
and felt bad as the H2O holiday makers dissolved
into a pint-sized Dead Sea.
© Carl Burkitt 2020
We put a lot of trust in things.
Clocks, lifts, locks on doors, expiry dates,
passing trains, drivers on motorways.
We trust textbooks and milk and chair legs
and bread and skyscraper foundations.
We trust electricity, the moon, the teeth of strangers,
spoons, our low self esteem, dogs, the green man.
Every day I trust my skin will continue
to hold all of my bits in, stop the rain
knocking against my bones, get me out of bed,
remind me when to step out of the sun.
© Carl Burkitt 2020
I carried a homemade cake across London
and got more stranger smiles than ever before.
It was like holding a happiness iced grenade,
a cream cheese party popper,
a puppy with a cherry for a nose.
I was a blueberry sponge postman
with the biggest delivery route in England,
a door-to-door salesman selling double-glazed pudding.
I was a man wandering through the corridor
of a conference centre wearing the name badge
Mr Sugar Crumbleton, Director of Cheer.
© Carl Burkitt 2020
When I take the bins out I imagine George Clooney
separating his card from his plastics.
I like picturing Dame Judi Dench fishing a seed
out of her back teeth with her tongue
or Samuel L. Jackson putting trainer socks on.
Do you reckon Victoria Beckham has ever
pressed 1 to speak to an operator?
I often think about Beyoncé popping a spot,
Anthony Hopkins sharpening a pencil,
Drew Barrymore changing a duvet cover
and you being here long enough
to pay your own council tax.
© Carl Burkitt 2020
I’ve been thinking a lot about what super power
I’d go for. I’m leaning towards something like
the power to remember dietary requirements,
or doing backflips, or clicking my fingers
to make mint Viennetta’s appear from thin air,
or the power to not let little things make my skin
want to burst at the seams, or carpentry,
or the ability to cut my own hair, or remembering
which cloud types are which, or knitting,
or flying over my past and fixing relationship
errors that stiffen my joints at night,
or the power to go invisible exclusively
in those moments when you put your
hand out to shake someone else’s
but they don’t spot you.
© Carl Burkitt 2020
