FebulousFebruary 2025: Lost and Found

Roll Up! Roll Up!

The harbour arm beckons us with its chorus line of lights.

A rainbow flag unfurls from a creaky crane.

Now let the show begin!

Candy pink limo full of popping prom girls stretches round the sweeping sands.

Teenage clubbers who carry a condom enter for free

while a barman juggles sunrise sling and sheets.

In from the wings fly paragliders through a sky of shimmering light

that Turner may have stroked.

Windsurfers soar cruise and spin glimpsing whites of the wind farms’ sails.

Christians raise their voices in the heat of the sandy afternoon

and their amen harmonises with a horny saxophone

playing to the people sipping chilled wine in the square.

A seashell lady gives you the nod when a fresh batch of fish is frying

or tea is being served at the Walpole Bay Hotel

on the geranium terrace at the top of the hill.

Backstage in the old town, local artists hum.

Staining glass moulding clay

wiring wrapping wreaths bouquets.

Beyond sandcastles she’s preparing to unveil

her house of installations and oils

hoping high speed trains will draw art lovers and the curious.

Curtains now on a flood of gold and streaky pinks

arching the old hugging couple on a bench.

He whispers in Polish of her beautiful eyes “masz piękne oczy” and they let the next bus go by.

Fiona Thomson

31 March 2010

Margate