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
Blue Suit is thinking of getting his dumbbells
out of the garage but his wife says he has to
remove the rowing machine from the box room
if he isn’t going to use it. Grey Suit has started
incorporating a three mile walk to and from
the gym every morning. Look, he’s done 1,200
calories already today. Blue Suit says he can’t
do it early in the morning because he’s too knackered.
Grey Suit says he gets it but you just have to get up
and do it. Blue Suit knows. Grey Suit asks Blue Suit
if he’s enjoying the job. Blue Suit goes to answer,
but Grey Suit says it doesn’t feel like a job
if you’re working with guys you can talk to,
especially with the unrealistic expectations they set.
© Carl Burkitt 2022
with the ease of a trapeze artist.
You are a Polaroid of mindfulness,
an image to sit and develop.
We should it, give it time
until we barely recognise it.
© Carl Burkitt 2022
and we go again
looking for something to do
between the moments
we have no control over.
© Carl Burkitt 2021
Carl tells tales 