Wake

I dislike funerals,
but the Celt in me
loves a decent wake.

Not the
polite,
curly white
cucumber sandwiches
and cups of tea
you could stand
a corpse up in
type of wake 

or the sort
that forces those
wrestling
with a harrowed,
rawbone ache
to shake hands
with an averted gaze
and sympathetic shoes,

but a proper ‘do’,
a celebration
of a full-span life,
mottled with its share
of strife and scrape,
peppered with purpose
and lively liver spots,

where the skeletons
are more interesting
than the closets
and the china is chinked
like battle-scarred armour.

So, let’s skip the cemetery,
the shallow grave speech
from the unfamiliar preacher
while we pick worm-mulched mud
from beneath our nails.

Let’s save on the heating,
cut the cremation,
the lip-synching of hymns,
the scattering of ashes beneath
the sapling limbs
of a strategically placed yew.

The phoenix is a fallacy;
nothing ever rose,
scented from the pyre
but the stink of crisp skin,
the wraith of desire
as it whimpered unnoticed. 

Let’s lay this body
down in the meadow,
on a table cloth
of butternut sunshine,
squashed between cordials,
bathed in a changeling breeze.

Open that bottle of Merlot
we were saving,
let it breathe the scent
of campions and daisies
that thrive
beyond the dried bouquet.

Allow the sun
to slip smoothly
down the neck of the sky,
instead of wrangling
with darkness
as it steals the day.

Unwrap our picnic of
cherished remnants
while Bacchus
opens our throats
and we lace our memories
with melodies and verse.

Let’s sleep,
arms wrapped around it
in the dewy night air,
beneath a blinking coverlet
of unknown mischief,
until it’s time to wake.

Gamble

Lingering
over last orders,
arrhythmia fingers
fidget
over cold, wet contours.

Flesh separated
by heavy oak,
jade and mahogany
magnets
closethegap,
fleetingly,
      repeatedly.

Shaken out
into the soft gloam
of an October night -
foamy beer on
restless tongues -
fingertips
              and lips                        

                          flutter.

free verse of the unfetterd

Not all things can be contained:
casketed in rhyme, scanned into
a neat line, strait-jacket-strapped,
iambic packet-wrapped -

the way
summer butter
s l i d e s
into beachfire toasted muffins, 

the hush of a shared
alpaca blanket as it
silks
against salt-naked skin, 

or you, in the morning;
charcoal lashes
lifting
through a sweat-glistened fringe.

Nestled in the coastal beauty of Pembrokeshire, West Wales, Julie Watkins is a teacher and a poet – the day job pays the bills but poetry is her passion. Writing on a diverse range of subjects, her Celtic roots are very evident in the passion and depth of her poetry. Previously published in Inclement Poetry and Turbulence Poetry magazines, Julie is currently in the process of putting together a manuscript of her work.