but the bloke isn’t getting a look in.
He’s picking savoury pastry out of his teeth
with the corner of the bakery’s business card
watching his kids eat the biscuits like grapes.
He’s doing a wonderful job of pretending
he doesn’t care, talking to his wife about
the sky being rather blue and the sea
being rather blue and how the cloud over there
looks a bit like the head of the teacher
who called him a selfish little boy.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

Marilyn Monroe is screaming
at SpongeBob Squarepants.
She’s yet to call him Mr President,
because the sea does not have
an elected leader, but she’s called him
a Piece of shit and Absolutely useless.
SpongeBob doesn’t care, he has
a pizza in his hand and a permanent smile
stitched across his absorbent mask.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

I’d like to own a shop
that’s name doesn’t give away what it does.
People will walk past us on the street
and think maybe we’re a solicitors.
They will see our sign and wonder
if we can help them buy a house
or sell them tiles or mend their fences.
They will be surprised that we’re not
a bathroom showroom or a kitchen showroom
or a motorbike or car or tractor showroom.
They won’t be able to buy dead meat here.
We will not fix their plumbing or electrics.
We will sit on the high street
waiting for people with guts to say hello.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

I know people
less welcoming
than this public bin.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

Granddaughter and grandmother are playing
hide and seek. Grandmother is hiding
behind her daughter’s body. Granddaughter is
flummoxed. All she can see is her mother
standing tall, smiling mischievously.
Grandmother has vanished, gone, melted,
swallowed by the future, the strength and power
of a daughter she poured herself into.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

He’s telling his mate the news on speaker phone.
The English couple overhearing the conversation
do not understand the significance of the moment
but the man’s smiling teeth are dollar coins
and his eyes are an ancient mystery.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

and I wash urine from my penis
and I wash maple syrup from my fingers
and I wash suncreamscreen from my beard
and I wash bears from my eyes
and I wash killer whales from my eyes
and I wash bald eagles from my eyes
and I wash sea lions from my eyes
and I wash bad news from my muscles
with old company in new air.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

I guess some one has to
sing back to the birds
and let them know we’re here.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

The blokes are kicking a ball to one another
on their local beach calling each other
bro. The muscles on their naked chests are
from a different planet. I walk past them,
my brain bursting with conversation
and facts about the invention of the FA Cup
slowly enough in case the ball finds its way
to my feet and I need to return it. It doesn’t.
I am a spectator in the sand, bursting.

© Carl Burkitt 2023

and the man on the bus says,
If you get hit by one of those, you’re a goner.
You laugh and he tells me about the time
his motorbike got hit by a flatbed truck
and he did a 360 flip on to the ground.
A stranger asked him
if he wanted an ambulance but he said no
because he was delivering something
he thinks he probably shouldn’t tell me about
and he just had to get out of there.
The next morning, his legs were pins and needles.
He dragged his body like a slug
through the front door, down the porch steps,
on to his neighbours front yard
and he screamed until he was in hospital
for six weeks. He recommends I read
Geronimo’s biography because that guy knew
how to survive an onslaught.

© Carl Burkitt 2023