FebulousFebruary 2025: Lost and Found

We used to party

with our fingers 

inside each other 

under the table 

of our local pub. 

Laughing willdly 

because nobody knew 

what we were up to. 

Entwined 

encased in music 

gospel reggae soul

erupted 

as we partied hard 

under blankets 

made smooth by 

so much action. 

We partied until 

we were breathless. 

Two souls swirling 

in the dance 

of life .

Then like autumn 

leaves 

you blew away 

and for a while 

the ghost of you 

weighed a ton. 

But at least 

for a time 

we were able 

to stable each other 

on the floor 

in a rapturous beat.

Jo Fraser, Bromley

Poitin

It’s Sunday. Ten thirty. We’ve both dropped a pill.

And you know and I know it’s time to distil.

When the taste of your spirit is spit on my lips.

When I dive through the dark fathomed dip of your hips.

With your back and my back and arching and bending

we’re sending ourselves along deep, broiling tracks,

through the volatile, vaporous, wolf-wiley packs.

Through the thickening pot.

Through the cool and the hot.

Through the licking, slick tongues of the liquid

that gleam cleans the rot.

And you are the dance of the gluttonous flame

and I am the burn of a chemical beast

that cooling and boiling can’t tame.

With the chill … and your hot/sweat … condensing my soul

I know light and dark are the same.

In blackening waters we boil and steam.

We are vapour and mist,

we are blood, we are fist,

we are flood and vibration and dream.

I can’t scream.

I just coil in your coppery arms,

collecting myself from the spray on my thighs.

I am almost nothingness, formless … and formed.

I’m the tips of the swords in your eyes.                                            

Renée McAlister, Brighton