I’m a bad guy
flicking a toothpick from one side of my mouth
to the other, chunks of cashew nuts
shaking in my molars.
My hair is an oil slick.
I’m strutting deeply down the street
like a dad on nights woken too soon
waiting for his hip to join him.
I’m a bad guy,
considering going to the pub at lunch.
I’m a bad guy.
There is someone walking towards me
and I am not even considering
apologising when I step out of their way.
I’m a bad guy
according to the eye in my brain
that refuses to look again.
I’m a bad guy.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

He’s impressing all the ladies about his mission
to make his own banana vermouth.
They’re asking questions about the process
and it will take at least until December
because first he needs to make banana wine
which is why he’s on his phone right now
ordering a peculiar jar with an expensive air-
suction lid. He says he made a cream cheese cocktail
once and the ladies move to the edge of their seats.
One says she needs to go to the toilet,
the other asks when his girlfriend left him.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

The man with combed hair
asking me for directions
to the Business Centre
is telling me I have egg yolk
on the sleeve of my
Macho Man Randy Savage T-shirt.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

After David Eagleman

In the afterlife, you wake up in a one bedroom flat. It’s not the one you died in but the bay window looks familiar and your fingerprints are on the skirting board. The kitchen has nothing but a microwave and there is no food anywhere. You go hungry for six days until you are frustrated enough to slam the microwave door. It pings. You open the door and inside is the ASDA lasagne you ate on your first day of university. You remove the meal and shut the door. It pings. You open the door and inside is grandma’s leek and potato soup. Shut. Ping. Open. The popcorn dad hated the smell of. Shut. Ping. Open. The receptionist from your first job’s scrambled egg. Shut. Ping. Open. Reheated pizza from your engagement party. Shut. Ping. Open. The beans the day Jim died. Shut. Ping. You will open the door for eternity and burn your fingers again and again on bowls you will one day forget where they came from.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

The park gate opens with unwavering sincerity.
I am a gate, it says, I open and close.
I walk through and nod at a dog walker
wearing walking boots designed
by a group of people who woke up
specifically to design walking boots.
Lovely day, he says. A squirrel eats a nut.
The sky is nothing
but the sun doing what the sun does.
The thick tree at the far end
standing between two benches
dedicated to two 17-year-old boys
refuses to pick up the conkers it has lost.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

My son is in the bath
teaching his doll about nuts.
It’s all innocent stuff.
He’s explaining that squirrels eat them
but we buy them from shops
and they’re sort of like seeds
because when squirrels put them in the ground
they turn into trees.
His doll isn’t saying anything
but my son doesn’t mind;
he’s surrounded by soil
busy turning into oak.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

There was a heatwave.
Fred swallowed the sun;
it was the easiest thing to do.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

You say you learned about your brain
from your teacher,
the woman you Saw with your eyes
for the first time three days ago.
You point at your ears
with pasta sauce fingers and say
Sound goes in here.
The moon was in the sky this morning
when It belongs in the night
and A circle is not a square.
Soon you will discover time
and before we know it I will be in a box
inside a black car driving on a Road
the Romans built.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

It will soften your sofa
like a weekend breakfast.
It will make dirty nachos
out of your napkins,
guacamole out of your garage.
It will make your new floral lunch plates
gentle enough to entertain
the 18-year-olds who are
now 35-year-olds.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

I search
for videos
explaining how to fold
elasticated bedsheets. I’m
useless.

© Carl Burkitt 2023