I met a broken traffic light.
Whenever you’re ready,
she said. Go ahead,
I’m listening.
No need to stop.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

Your fingers and tongue are yellow
because you’re eating buttercups.
I’ve read too many websites and books
the grass is now a helicopter.
I think about hobbies, handcuffs, suffocation,
a reflex comment or quick look
I will forget in seconds
that will tattoo itself on to your decisions,
and the man on TV last night
who got so close to the world’s largest tarantula
he coughed and itched his skin for 12 hours
then climbed out of a log covered in filth
with a smile bigger than the rainforest.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

I hear you
laughing in the next room
and all of the dead
poems die.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

I watched a squirrel watching me
through the patio doors.
Its tail was up, answering the question
Where is that bright light coming from?
Its nose danced to the beat of its paws.
It could tell I was human
because I was eating Crunchy Nut with a spoon
and crying for no reason.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

My body travels
through new rooms
with an ease
my mind has never
kept up with.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

Here I am again listening to sad music,
hanging my head with Johnny Cash.
It’s nice to know my hands like my body
these days, how I can swim
with the man who comes around and not drown,
how I can remember that outside my window
are trees preparing to be climbed
by a bullet with seven teeth.
My headphones are dry,
the room I’m in smells of a pastéis de nata
and marshmallow shower gel
wrapped around a freshly made cup of tea.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

Written using sentences found by searching
for ‘play’ in my WhatsApp search bar

Just having a quick play.
Wanna play?
It looks like they’ve never played.
Are you playing Jenga with the car?
She seems quite happy playing
with an older dog and just being a dog.
I want to play.
I want to play all week.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

get fed once a day:
an empty Greek yogurt pot worth of grain
and the odd cabbage from a family member.
Barbara’s chickens peck my boots
but not my running trainers
and they have the face of a soap opera hard man.
To me, Barbara is
a square lawn and a bible in the kitchen.
Her muscles are dotted throughout the road
digging up her weeds, cleaning her windows,
updating the street’s WhatsApp.
Here bones are collected in a hospital,
resting.

© Carl Burkitt 2021

Your limbs are crawling
and your skin is discovering
corners of the house
where the ghosts our fingertips live.

© Carl Burkitt 2021