The bald head and beard hangs up,
wipes the damp skin of his nose.
His shoulders sit with the biscuit crumbs
on the floor. The chewing of his chewing
gum softens. His eyes are good news.
Have you ever seen a man
folding paper he’s no longer scared of?
His thumbs do the waltz on his phone
which sings back to him immediately.
He orders a chocolate muffin
with his next cup of tea and shuts his laptop.
His chin looks up and strokes the ceiling,
where it remains for my entire life
as I walk out of the coffee shop.

© Carl Burkitt 2022

After Apple News

There are not enough squares
in a calendar to organise
what I’m losing control of.

© Carl Burkitt 2022

The square tag poking out of the generic teapot
in the paint-by-numbers coffee shop
makes my think about 500cm long sausages,
toast taller than the flat-packed flats opposite,
bacon wider than the road outside
getting battered by predictable rain.
I wouldn’t know what to do if I saw a baked bean
the size of a regulation football,
black pudding as thick as a coffin,
tomato halves like train wheels out of here.
Please don’t show me the hen that laid
the fried egg larger than the town I’m in.

© Carl Burkitt 2022

Wear your nonsense on your teeth.
Point at every thing you see and scream.
Dance your Babybel hips down the ramp
from the jukebox to the pool table.
Look at the football on the TV
and wonder what you will be
when your arms are the length of Mars.
Dress like your mind, be furious.
The men are leaning on barstools that are
even older than them. They say they cannot
find the energy to chase you or teach you
or be you, but they don’t mind.

© Carl Burkitt 2022

Words are learning how
to make their way to your mouth.
Fingers clinging to the slippery handrails
of your ribs, feet struggling to grip on
to the thin steps of your spine.
They have no time to wait;
they keep
climbing,
shaking, www
until up www
they up wee
burst up eee
their up eee
way up eee.

Carl Burkitt 2022

Three thousand fully clothed teeth
nod their heads in a dimly lit mouth.
Bar staff gather in gums, shoes stick
to a beer-soaked tongue. Purple shines
over a man who will set himself on fire,
sweat collects on his back like a crowd
melting to the joy of tasting vibrations.

© Carl Burkitt 2022

Laces thinning from tying self too tightly,
tongue big and silent, mud dry and stuck
in any cracks it found. The garage is cold
enough for it to remember wet Sundays,
a chance to forget about the things it
couldn’t do and the people who thought
it was pointless. The concrete floor makes it
feel like a tap dancing shoe, clip clopping
through a changing room with mates
who wouldn’t be here forever, but had hearts
for enough time to tell it to kick while it can.

© Carl Burkitt 2022

Grab a hold of your chest skin tight enough
to remove it without causing pain. Peel it off
and show the youngest eyes in the universe
that what lies beneath is every known colour,
the chance to wake up feeling useful, a bowl
of Weetabix and songs about excavators,
a train track built from cherry tomatoes and cheese,
a pair of boots dirtied with mud from countries
and towns and planets that refuse to be found,
juggling balls, uncut hair, clashing outfits,
the space between expectations and a terrible
imitation of a lion, an empty calendar, a yellow cap,
the urge to play the drums or paint a goat
or count butterflies or fly to the ocean
and the flair to sit up and fail.

© Carl Burkitt 2022