Driving along under an open sky
In our own sweet special way
The air is free
The world is wide
Till we hit homebound traffic of a Sunday

They flash in the rear view mirror
Those bastards trying to overtake
Ahead a swarm of brake-lights flares
Round tail backs and delays.

So our leisure begins to wear us out
Just as a press on the peddle pushed us back
Over what we've covered and yet to cover
Acres of implacable tarmac.

So much for progress. Why don't we sell up?
There are houses I've seen from the car or the train,
Tranquil, secluded. We could retreat
From this bumper to bumper rat-race...

And so I go on, till you point out
That all my supposed vistas of escape
Are next to a rail track or motorway.

I put on the indicator,
Push into third and pull
Into the fast lane

What's known is over.
What's gained is lost.
Ahead of us it's only hearsay.

Peter Jukes 1989

Once again, amateur singing, playing and recording, but this lyric makes more sense with the music.

He stole his own daughter
Took her in his car
In a town near the border
He didn't get far
He thought the police were coming
So he left her on the road
A freezing night in winter
She was four years old

Where is she?
That abandoned child?
After all those years
How did she survive?

She's walking right in front of me
Wearing her high heels
Kicking up the leaves
She walks ahead so fearlessly
Laughing back at me
Underneath the trees

Like no one else
She found herself

See the world
Feel it turn
Rivers melt
Spring returns
Touch the earth
Feel it breathe
The sun comes out
When you're with me

She walking right in front of me
Wearing high heels
Kicking up the leaves
She walks ahead so fearlessly
Laughing back at me
Underneath the trees

Like no one else
She found me herself

See the world
Feel it turn.
Touch my face
Feel it burn.
Watch the trees,
They know it's true
The sun comes out
When I'm with you.

Across the world
In her high heels
Through mountain range
Over snowfields
Left behind
She is now ahead
And she wears her heels
Even In my bed

Peter Jukes 2006

She's sitting on her cloud
Reading a book

Wish I had written that book
Wish I WAS that book

She could turn my pages over
Slowly, then fast, getting
Lost in the plot, rifling
Her way to the climax

She could peruse me anytime,
Lift me up, put me down,
And from cover to cover
Read between my lines

She could keep me in her pocket
On her pillow at night
Under her shirt on the subway
On her legs or on her lap

Only she can comprehend me
Many times she's picked me up
And then carefully bent me back
Without damaging my spine

So here I am again
Your little book

Open at the page
Where you left me

Peter Jukes 2003

In the Met Museum
Aphrodite
Half naked.

In a club downtown
Your underwear
In my pocket

Peter Jukes 2006

Another year. I see the blossom
Scuffed under my boots
Crushed to slush on the pavement.
My phone buzzes - is it a text from you?
No. Just 'Battery low'.

How come I always miss the spring?
Something that's always about to happen
Or a lottery I never bet on...
My phone buzzes again
‘Battery low’ and with a blue flash
"Goodbye"

I must try to be more present.
This is my life no other.
How many rehearsals do I have left?
But the trees fake it
Effortlessly.
They deserve the first prize in
You've got Talent.

Plug the recharger in.
If I find a signal quick
Maybe I will yet get a text from you.

The phone lights up and says
"Welcome".

Yes welcome welcome welcome
One day I'll be there to meet you.

He was a kind of angel,
Building his perch in the rockface,
A DIY nest of packaging and foil,
Keeping a lookout all evening,
White wings furled.

While the sea wind slowly
Rubbed the cliff
Into oblivion.

He was only a kind of angel,
Immaculate, untested,
For what kind of angel
Is afraid to fly?

Then I fell for you:
Surrendered to empty air
Went without
Feathers, mortgages, metaphors,
Let go of all my losses
Losing grip of everything
Grey feathered now

Drinking pints of sky

Rinsed by the wind

Peter Jukes 2003

I’m out of luck again
And out of inspiration,
And Lenin is on the train
To the Finland station.

He knows what he’s doing
He knows what’s to be done,
And here I am
Standing on the platform.

*

I feel the lure
Of the suburbs calling,
To be simple to be wise
A pretender
Living out his life
Without a hope or a prayer,
Without rhyme or reason.

But the rhyme and reason
Keep on coming.
And the need to arrive
Goes ahead of everything.
The young poet
Walking out
Into the Finnish lake,
The other in the mental asylum,
My mentor
Deducting the final days
With every cigarette he smoked.
He knew what he was doing…

And then it really hits me:
If everyone heads nowhere
Why am I so jealous
What is the hurry to join them?
The train is pulling into the station.
Everybody is nowhere.
Arriving doesn’t matter
Time after time,
Without rhyme or reason.

*

It doesn’t end;
The light-bulbs to be changed. Bed mites
In my pillow. Tides milling the shingle.
They never end.
Car hire lease payments.
The fatuousness of fame. Replication of
Cancer cells. The best dying young:
The worst getting their own
Newspaper columns. Summer nights heavy
With the smell of bad barbecues:
Autumn with diesel, spring with cocaine.
It never ends. Idiots in the chancellery. Control freaks
In their driving seats. The plunder of the forests.
The selfishness of plankton. Suspicious border guards.
The questions and evasions.
Insects thriving. Continents colliding.
Mothers screaming at their kids.
Couples shouting in the street….

They will never end.

But this
At least
Is finished.

Your voice comes from the clouds
Like rain falling on grass
By the edge of a forest
When the dogs are quiet

There, near the lake.
The moon is rising and the wind
Seems to shake the birches.
But it's not a breeze - it's me.
Perched on the telephone wires
Unable to come back down to earth

*

Olive oil dripping
Between your breasts

Naked skin slipping
Into a lake.

Magnesium calming
Jangled nerves

A butterfly unfurling
Inside your heart

A horizon of mountains
That are actually clouds

Cool vodka
On a dry tongue

*

It wasn't hard
One look in your eyes
And I was already weightless
As soon as you touched me
I grew wings.

It wasn't hard
Taking off with you
Circling the earth
Eight times in one day
Flying all night
Wing to wing
And on the second day
Breaking the sound barrier

The boom rolled across the horizon for ages

None of this was hard
Our only rule was
Breaking all rules
Breaking all records
No expectations no promises
No limits no ends.

Flying is easy
The hard part is landing.

Peter Jukes 2003-6

They tramped across the fields behind the church
On a damp day - the wind blowing north-east
Played on patches of snow left in the ditches
And on the banks of the old canal
In the shadow of the big hill
Embraced.

Desperately he said: `I love you
More than I love myself'.
And her eyes
Widened
Incredulous

He wasn't lying.
What love could you expect
From this tender adolescent who barely
Liked himself?

But your eyes
Opened
So wide.

Overhead, clouds gathered, winds veered
It was late.
And having gone too far to turn back now
They heard
Hemispheres mutter and gyrate

We knew they would not wait

And now there's nothing left
And nothing's
Changed

Peter Jukes 1979 and 1986

I was waiting in the restaurant
One cold December day
She came down and sat with me
(No-one noticed) but when she left
I saw her place was empty
Then I knew she'd been there.

And she is here at this moment
In this room, she leans over
Finishes these lines
But the moment I look up
She's gone. It's just me reading.
That's how I know she's been here

I see her long brown hair
Trailing on the underground in dreams
I would ask what she's doing
Haunting me here
In semicolons and silences
But she would only shrug
Unable to say

She cannot speak
When I am listening.

While I sit in the rain
Imagining missing her forever
She sits under the sun
Half hoping I will find her
But I won't. She hides so well.

At her best
When no one listens

Peter Jukes 1999