FebulousFebruary 2026: The Old Photograph

Squared (for Ellyott)

Things have changed since

Van Limburgstirumplein last saw us

Cycling around her

I sit to sip overpriced coffee

Hoping I can still see

Your cheeks puff

Up front on a giant homemade bike

Me with my

Over stuffed rucksack

Dangling from the back

Two foreign girls

Escaping our governments

Looking for life lasting love

And finding it

In each other’s

Secret world faces

Ellyott, my lover is

Several inches shorter than even me

But three times as strong

Astute jockey always pushing through

What else can a dyke woman do?

Over tram tracks

Careful never to get stuck

The number ten

To Javaplein

Which too has been

Reclaimed from the squatters

Renovated and rebranded

Reblended into Amsterdam green

These days’ dykes are not so strange

Everybody is somewhere

On the queer spectrum range

Integration is the new normal

As everyone assimilates our fists

And to be fair our old enemy capitalism

Never needed homophobia as an excuse

To kick anyone where it hurts most

We, like the Moroccans have been priced out

Way beyond the railway tracks

Unless we have money

When we are welcome

To spend in the sunset lit square

Nice bikes sitting upright tidy in their racks

Adorn the advertising pumping station

As if it has always been

Like this there

Not filled with junkies their gums burned bare

The Kemperstraat stands far too quiet

Without her graffiti minded sluts

Near the Avondwinkel in

Need of more than

A lick of paint

The number of bridges getting smaller

As the city council carts

All homeless looking damaged bikes away

The cries of freedom from restraint

Have all grown faint

But the pigeons circle

The square indifferently

Just the same

MajIkle

Your Ideal Life

We must look like ants from way up there,

Insignificant nothings, wisps of air.

When you’re born into so much wealth,

Why should you care about National health?

Housing, no problem, schooling too.

Get out your cheque book, it’s easy for you,

Since you were old enough to understand

You were told it’s wrong to give us a hand.

It encourages laziness, lack of drive,

Only tough love will help us thrive.

You were told you’re special, born to rule

By teachers at your boarding school.

We share a planet, a country too

But you don’t get us and we don’t get you.

Still people like us keep voting you in,

In awe of your swagger, we let you win.

‘Newspaper’ barons confuse us, too,

With fake news and the hate they spew.

Divide and rule – that is their game,

Pages filled with rage and blame.

Immigrant, Muslim, Socialist, youth,

No one survives their contempt for truth.

They pull our strings and make us prance.

To their soulless tune, they make us dance.

They dodge their tax; they axe our pay,

Our rights, our wealth, they steal away.

But waking up are the many,

Drop drop drop goes the penny.

The internet has set us free

As print press dies, the truth we see.

Your puppets we will be no more,

Now we’re showing you the door.

As your pay climbs, ours is slashed,

As your hopes grow, ours are dashed.

On our backs you climb up high

While you gobble all the pie,

Then you force through austerity

And blame us for our poverty.

You scamming, cunning narcissists,

We are DONE with all of this.

A leader now has come along –

He plays our tune and sings our song.

He gets us and we get him too,

We know he is a man that’s true,

“A cult” you mock, “the great J.C.”,

You don’t see his integrity.

Jenny King, Kent

Loss

I printed you on paper so someone could find us and know who we were,

In passions felt and seen, rebelled and held onto as scraps in a box.

Against our wars

Tactile tenderness of a page in a hand,

Held on to who we were with words.

JJ

Splintered Kindling

Dark oak, gothic; furniture that has been mine for years.

She’ll bump into it, bruise, curse me. I know.

Taking the small axe from the wood pile I bring it into the house of me

And set about rendering the thing to splintered kindling.

We burn it now in our fire

And the smoke curls out from our nostrils and mouths

Steaming and hissing.

Old ghosts expelled,

Clinging curling clouds

Vapour disappearing into the clean blue air.

Nicky Mitchell

Says the Man…

Make America Great Again,

Says the man,

Who makes America hate again.

In the military we’ll have no Trans,

Says the man,

With tiny hands.

We’re gonna build a wall,

Says the man,

While his approval ratings fall.

We’re gunna drain the swamp,

Says the man,

Who demands all of the Pomp,

And circumstance of a military parade,

Even though he didn’t serve his dues.

He’s a man informed almost solely by Fox News,

With little depth and perception.

Now is the time for insurrection,

Time to make a stand,

Time to bring together this monumental band,

Of brothers and sisters, of queers and hipsters,

Of trans folk and lesbians, of Muslims and thespians,

Of immigrants and women, of pussies that ain’t for grabbin’!

Of Mexicans and beefcakes, of libtards and snowflakes,

Stand up for your rights, time to stand, time to fight,

And we must, because needs be.

Time to send the puppet in chief,

To get in the fuckin’ sea!

                                                                        Kelly Tonks, Folkestone

More Bus tales

Yeah this afternoon half two…hope it brightens up for them…

You wouldn’t get married would you?

Not a chance it’s a life sentence …you get less for murder!

I’m not bothered I’m secure now and at least I’m not getting slapped.

JJ

Bus tales 

She sat on’t sofa an lifted up er top, should see size of er!

Is it twins then?

No but maybe there’s one hidden round the back of ‘tuther!

Any idea what it is?

No but our Michaela wants it to be a girl, says she don’t want another brother!

JJ

Revolting ‘79

We were thought revolting, but we revolted
We wore badges and smiley symbols
We partied in cellars
We were anarchic
We were deluded but high on promises
We thought we pioneered
But we were children …
The beginning of the revolution

Disco, bright lights, Rocky Horror
Façades of inequality and sorrow
We protested, we revolted
Built the groundwork of tomorrow
Tomorrow has now become today
Youth is now a different way
May be we won’t agree with them
Perhaps we’ll become partisan
Yet revolution will take its course
And we are all revolutionaries of course

Tracy Diss, Birling, Kent.

little Helpers

Faces in this shelter

soften in the steam of

one xmas dinner

I strive not to stare

at the pain scratched

in there

we’ve come to cook

they are gifting us

shiny halos

again this year

before we drive off

to our homes bursting

full of gear.

Maj Ikle

At first it was a silent protest – I didn’t say a word when I unwrapped the gift. How could she? Ten years of marriage and that’s what she gets me, an oven glove. A poxy oven glove.

Now I know we didn’t usually do presents on anniversaries, we were trying to be different in our marriage, trying to create our own new traditions and redefine, in our own unique, ok so not so unique, two car-one IVF baby-semidetached home- go to work in London every day on the train –and garden centres on the weekend kinda way. And this is how she thanks me, with an oven glove.

It wasn’t even a personalised one. Not that a few diamontes saying I love you Sacha would have made the difference, but at least it would have been a start, a show of thought.

However, my silent protest on unwrapping, my internal rage upon reflecting meant that I had to act. This couldn’t just go round and round like the usual passive aggressive trade offs we’d make, “well I would empty the dishwasher if the bin bags weren’t in front of it and someone took them outside” **rolls eyes, looks at the two year old who can’t really comprehend bins or my churning rage**

Yes, the wrong of the oven glove and all it symbolised had to be righted. I wish I had the balls (the tits?) to say ”is that all you think I’m worth, chain me barefoot to the kitchen why don’t you, that seems sooo feminist…are you really the person I went to that Germaine Greer lecture with when we all stood in unison cutting up our Tesco Clubcard as a symbol of our unshackling ourselves from domestic enslavement?”

The oven glove of misunderstanding, the glove of failure to recognise the one in front of you. An oven glove for someone who had to buy last minute Comic relief cupcakes on Tuesday because they had a meeting with the Director of Finance so got home late last week is a slap in the face. It’s saying you don’t know me. Or is it?  The problem isn’t the gift, although some diamond earrings would’ve been nice… it’s the metaphor…an oven glove, a utensil incapable of thoughts outside its purpose, stained, forced in to a situation to protect everyone by sacrificing itself, and its’ reward? Being dropped on the floor never cared for despite being used day in day out. You didn’t give me an oven glove, you gave me, me. And I didn’t like what I saw.

Revenge of course is hard, and requires planning, and isn’t easy when you have to go to Waitrose on the way home to pick up a shimmering blue bottle of Bombay Sapphire as it’s your turn to host book club with the girls, or you need to get onto Etsy to find the perfect birthday card to your 8 year old niece in Australia who you’ve never met except via Skype.

But it will come. The best revenge is living well, right….well, I’m biding my time, getting ready for my exit. And, when I do, it won’t be a silent protest. I will drive off down the street shrieking with the laughter of a free woman, blaring “you don’t own me” out of the radio, off into the unknown like Thelma and Louise, waving the oven glove out the window and releasing it into the wind.

Revenge after all is a dish best served cold….and there’s no oven glove required for that!

Serena Gilbert, Kent