I will write you a poem one day
and it will be all about what happened
and how you could have done better
and how I could have done better
and it will have imagery
that other people don’t understand
and there will be a goblin with sharp teeth
and it will be brave, not hiding behind vague promises,
and be gloriously self-confident
and include one line of beauty
that will help what happened never happen.
Carl Burkitt 2024
But I do, and I let it brew
until it gets to the point you might call it Chewy.
I use a toothpick when I eat popcorn now
because my gums have started to recede
and kernels have more to hold on to these days.
I walk around shops with my hands
behind my back, trim my ear hairs,
want the entire front of my house
to be draped in multicoloured Christmas lights,
watch my son put a silver bauble on the tree
and count the summers we have left.
Carl Burkitt 2023
A bowl of red apples with fresh water
sliding down their round cheeks
has just been placed in front of me.
The wooden table they’re sitting on is
warm from ocean sun. A stack of side
plates, decorated with calm, silver swirls
are waiting patiently for sea swimmers
to lift their light shoulders back aboard
for a snack. My back is soft. As soft as
the cushion it’s resting against. The radio
switches itself on in broken English:
Come in. US Navy War Ship approaching.
My spine is a lighthouse. The captain
sips Turkish sweet tea, smiles at his wife
chopping potatoes.
© Carl Burkitt 2023
The words melt from his tongue with the tiredness
of someone who’s binge-watched 40 TED Talks.
His mate agrees and turns down another pint
because it’s a lot darker since the clocks turned back
and he’d hate to slip on his new driveway
with no-one else on the other side of the front door.
© Carl Burkitt 2022
Noodle arms
lift up the sky
with a power
reserved for fun.
© Carl Burkitt 2022
The wind sharked in through the tube train window
and turned the empty Subway sandwich bag
into a fish. It swam from passenger face
to passenger face to handrail to door to floor
to advertising panel to passenger face.
It was magic. It was medieval.
It was a no-jointed hero lost in its own skeleton.
The low rent American Beauty indulgence
was
interrupted by the reality of a man
with pork scratching eyebrows
swearing at himself, telling his chest
it didn’t belong to be here anymore.
© Carl Burkitt 2022
She’s singing in a room of people
queuing for her to make them drinks.
She’s weaving reality into the lyrics.
Woah, I’m halfway there
Woah, livin’ on a prayer
Take your tea, I made it I swear
Woah, livin’ on a prayer
A man with a history creased
into his forehead yells Come again?!
The cafe’s supervisor falls over
in front of the cleaner holding
a CAUTION WET FLOOR SIGN.
A baby vomits. A chair breaks, untouched.
The woman won’t stop singing.
My skin loosens. My ears whisper,
You’re alive mate.
© Carl Burkitt 2022
The karate kids
are running towards each other;
one past the pizza place,
one past the estate agents.
They are white-pyjamaed weapons
smiling HIYA with a wave
then HIYA with a chop to the air.
Their belts are orange
like the weak squash in the bottles
held by their parents trying to keep up,
like the sun smacking their cheeks.
© Carl Burkitt 2022
They’d be nice. They’d be nice. They’d be nice.
Everyone is fine. My black trousers
and polished shoes haven’t been needed
for while. I don’t know why
I’m walking down aisle 25
thinking what crisps would be good at a wake.
© Carl Burkitt 2022
and the grey lorries out of the window
crawled towards us with elephant legs,
past the gap-toothed drains and thumbs up lampposts.
A tree took the time to dance for us,
the trains stuck their tongues out like snakes,
the puddles winked like happy tears.
We saw a pigeon today, it served us breakfast
tea at the coffee shop and told us it liked our hair.
The sun was a yo-yo and the moon a full stop.
© Carl Burkitt 2022
Carl tells tales 