My word, you’re wonderful.
I could squeeze you
until your limbs fall off
and pile up into heart shapes.
I could flatten you round like a discus
and kiss you in my palm
and lob you across the world.
I could fold you into a first class letter
and send you to the Queen
for her 100th birthday.
I could frame you and star you in an art exhibition
I couldn’t afford a ticket to get into.
I could look you in the eye
and see a reflection
that doesn’t deserve to live in them.
But I won’t. No way.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

I watched a knackered snail
sliver its way over
the crusted crumbs
of a sun-cooked dog turd.
That could’ve been me.
The snail or the shit.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

We were alive.
We were tight-rope walkers.
We were both the antelope.
We were both the lion.
We were writing history.
We were strangers, we were partners,
we were one creature fossilised in time.
We were Adam and Adam eating apples.
We were bound by the electricity of nature
the second our eyes met outside the cubicles
and saw who we’d just taken a shit with.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

I got lost in a stranger’s beard.
It swallowed me like a furry sinkhole.
I drowned in a skunk-hair swamp.
On my search for an exit
I passed crumbs the size of a Sunday roast.
I jumped from milk blob to milk blob
like Sonic the Hedgehog
on his last life in the Marble Zone.
When I resigned myself to the hairy grave
I fell inside his mouth.
His tongue tasted of my judgements.
His teeth wouldn’t stop chatting.
His canines stung with a sharp wit;
cutting through incisor insights and molar memories
of a life I’d be lucky to taste.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

When characters on reality dating shows
list their preferences
of height, weight, hair style,
muscle definition, sense of humour,
bank balance, interests, work ethic,
girth, age, horoscope, fashion sense,
whistling ability, history of farming,
pizza making techniques, burping range, number of languages invented
and level of skin-invisibility in a partner,
I’m struck by how
few people would want me in their home.
When my eyes blink goodbye to the day
I float in the breath of a chance taker.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

The sign outside the church said
A fresh approach to funerals.
I imagined the bodies of loved ones
popped in rockets and fired back to the universe.
I imagined a rollercoaster hearse,
a Live At The Apollo eulogy, a Nando’s wake.
I imagined hologram gravestones, BBQ cremations,
an Order of Service not made in Microsoft Word.
I imagined a corpse on a bouncy castle, ball-pit coffins,
climbing frames made from rib bones.
I imagined He was such a sweet lad
balanced with every mistake he ever made.
I imagined them not happening at all.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

Gravel Faceplant
Crispy Quiff
Mince Pie Nightmare
The Tall Boy With The Small Boy
Mustard Pupil
Discarded Foreskin
Kann Ich Bitte Meinen Blazer Ausziehen?
Tonsil Blisters
Chicken Pox Shaft
Crow Toe
Tequila Bile
Nightclub Loafer
Stoic Eulogy
Therapy Virgin
Knackered Optimist

© Carl Burkitt 2020

There’s a bench in my local park
dedicated to the loving memory of a woman
with the same initials as me.
I like the idea
of being useful when I’m dead.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

Made a risotto. Driven a car.
Enjoyed a bath. Shaved my head.
Successfully wiped my arse sitting down.
Disliked my voice in the shower.
Won the lottery.
Properly got rid of my stammer.
Bought an animal.
Screamed as loudly as I’d like.
Finished a sudoku.
Pulled a moonie at a funeral.
Admitted how hard I find things.
Peeled off my skin and removed some ribs
to make an umbrella.
Not puked after tequila.
Genuinely been happy with a mirror.
Held a snake.

© Carl Burkitt 2020

And that’s how it happened.
In the blink of an eye in the dark.
But then you know that
because you were there,
living an earthquake I never saw.
A moment that turned my bones
into the chassis of a car I’d never drive
and my skin into ham
for the sandwich at a wake.

© Carl Burkitt 2020