You’ve woken me up
more times than the sun.
A hot breeze through smiling hair
that can be found dotted everywhere.
A barber once told me to never use you.
Another barber told me to always use you.
I decided to trust the first barber
and my damp, beef smelling towel.
Remember that night you were my laser gun?
Pow pow!
It was 2am and we killed all
the negative thoughts about my curls. Pow pow!
© Carl Burkitt 2020
Someone said something to me once.
The kind of something that made me
wish I could punch the nose off a planet.
My ears winced and agreed and screamed.
I tore off my skin like a comfortable onesie.
Six years later the leaves jumped off my family tree.
I thought about something someone said to me.
I wrote letters to Mercury, Venus and Mars
and watched the words ignite the Milky Way.
© Carl Burkitt 2020
I must confess,
I love stuffing a sausage in you
carefree.
But perhaps it’s about time
I got on my knees,
poked my head around,
got elbow deep
and gave you what for.
You are filthy.
(Don’t get me started on your dirty ring.)
© Carl Burkitt 2020
The words on the box of beer read
BEERS OF EUROPE:
Not just Europe, not just beer.
My brain did a backflip
as my hands turned into feet.
I felt myself unplug from the Matrix,
Ed Harris told me he was God.
The bird in the tree outside my bedroom climbed through the window
and ordered me to scream in his face.
I was born and died and born and dead.
My books started telling lies,
our houseplants leaned towards the shade
and I slipped between the floorboards.
BEERS OF EUROPE:
Not just Europe, not just beer.
© Carl Burkitt 2020
Lap tray.
Weyhey!
Saviour of jeans.
Gravy blocker for the knees.
You are our baked bean wicket keeper,
our graveyard of stains.
A thousand tea time stories
splashed across your face,
you are a buffet of the past.
A dribbling artist’s finest work.
Morning, noon and night
you do great holding a plate
for my ring-finger room mate
and every one
of her glorious cutlery mistakes.
Lap tray.
Weyhey!
© Carl Burkitt 2020
You are stains on a lap tray.
You are chocolate in the corner of mouths.
You are restless legs and spider solitaire.
You are face prods.
You are Teen Mom OG.
You are Teen Mom UK.
You are Catfish.
You are Stevie Wonder.
You are cheesy chips with piping hot gravy
and half a tin of cold beans on the side.
You are disco.
You are frayed toothbrush bristles.
You are a made up song.
You are a set of a thousand open ears.
You are.
© Carl Burkitt 2020
You’ve been built a bit premature.
A future alarm clock
poised in the corner of the room.
A friend of a friend
says he hears phantom screams
when he stays in hotel rooms.
My hangover won’t stop crying.
© Carl Burkitt 2020
Awkward
awkward
hello hello
awkward.
One person in charge until other persons
arrive and the group gets in charge.
Three times five heads on a laptop.
Questions. Obvious.
Impossible.
Obvious.
Impossible obvious.
Seven point five brain relaxation.
Buffering banter.
LED LADS.
Fourteen barmen screaming
“YOU’RE ON MUTE.”
Sincerity punches away and
face-on-screen-face
says this is the place for each other
to be each other stripped backed loved up
get another drink we’ll keep on going.
© Carl Burkitt 2020
You’re a peculiar looking bugger.
I wouldn’t put a penny on you at the Grand National.
You couldn’t handle a jockey’s weight.
The good news is, when I’m forced
to put you down, I can pull you up again.
You’d be lost in a motorway-side field.
Drivers would certainly stop and stare.
I’m still not used to seeing
bras and pants draped over you
like a wiry blue Tom Jones.
I’m excited to see you try on socks
a hundred times too small for you.
© Carl Burkitt 2020
Carl tells tales 