I spent what felt like four weeks
taking the socks off the clothes airer.
Each one a cartoon cloud.
Each one a microwave
for the world’s smallest buffet food.
Each one a tiny judge’s wig.
Each one decorated
with the head of a fox
or a chicken or a duck or a dog.
Each one a safe made from candy floss.
Each one with no idea
what they’re in charge of.
Each one with no concept of the value of gold.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

I’m in a café
watching a man watching a man.
The man I’m watching is watching his man
with a look I hope I’m not watching my man with.
My man’s nose is scrunched up
like he’s walked into a bakery that smells like turd.
His eyes are so tightly squished
I’m surprised he can see the man he’s watching.
The man I’m watching has the softest looking skin
but his clenched jaw is stretching it to cracking point.
It’s a shame the man he is watching
is doing whatever he is doing
because I’ve waited all day
to see the man I’m watching smile.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

God, you look cool in the passenger seat.
All leaned back, imaginary chin pointing up.
If you weren’t covered in a 7-foot hairnet
I know your pines would be flowing in the wind.
If you had arms
I know you’d have slipped Top Gun Aviators
over your alpine green eyes,
you’d have your left hand resting
on the edge of the door and your right
slowly passing through your spiky hair.
If you had lips
I know you’d be holding back a smile.
I know you’d be mouthing Call me to passersby.
I know you be hoping that wherever you’re going
has an organised colour scheme.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

The rain is drip
drip
dripping today.
That’s all I’ve got, to be honest.
Sometimes the rain just
drip
drip
drips
and it doesn’t mean the day is over.
It doesn’t mean that God wants me drowned
or that you two are melting
or the birds have exploded
or the ghosts are crying.
The rain is just
drip
drip
dripping
on the outside today.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

After Edward Hirsch

In spite of everything,
my skin is attached to muscle
and I wear grey slippers at night.
There’s a replica wrestling belt on our wardrobe,
I carry 8-foot Christmas trees for half a mile
and up one flight of stairs. In spite of everything,
I get to smell chocolate in the morning (in bed)
and listen to incorrect lyrics. I get to dance
in my pants, play code words and eat Pringles
and promise to stop eating Pringles
and then eat Pringles. I get to stretch my legs,
unfurl my spine, forget to shave my neck.
The next time a doctor has to ask
In spite of everything,
why do you think you’re still here?
I will say what I always say.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

Shall we have a little chat about leaves?
Shall we talk about how they wave in the wind?
Shall we talk about how crispy they get?
Shall we try and tackle their colour change?
Shall we discuss how, more often than not,
when you kick your way through piles of them
your pristine white trainers get covered in dog egg?
Do you think it looks like they have veins?
Do you think they like their trees?
Shall we have a little chat about leaves?
Shall we talk about how every time they die
they’re replaced but something
that looks a lot like they did
when the sun sat on them,
when young eyes stared and said Wow
for the first time through a window.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

A ladybird is walking
across my dark green woolly hat
and my hair is a vine plant
running down my window sill shoulders
and my sprouting chest is an unwelcome weed
and my nostrils are puddles
and I have a damp soil beard
swallowing all sorts of dead
and my skin is thin scum over a garden pond
and I can hear the croaks of jolly frogs
jumping and jumping and jumping
across lily pad freckles.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

His ribs were sagging coat hangers.
His eyebrows were draft excluders.
His jaw was a side view of an armchair.
His novelty tie was a toddler’s finger painting
pinned to the fridge of his work shirt.
His skin was hallway carpet.
His fingers were the separate compartments
of a cutlery drawer.
His eyes were bin night.
I can still hear his right shoe
tapping you are alive
in Morse code against the left.

© Carl Burkitt 2020