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Stumbleupon Poetry Blog

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This is shattered fragment of a stumbleupon blog, long since now defunct, where I used to store favourite images, and attach poems to them (or vice versa). Just goes to show that for all its claims of ubiquity, the digital domain doesn't give you much of a purchase in permanence. 

PeterJukes's reviews

 
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a 45 year-old guy
London, England, UK

This has turned into a poetry/photography page, which means I'm kind of stuck reviewing people the normal way. But I'm hitting my thumbs up button all over the place, and writing to people individually - so don't give up on me. Playwright, screenwriter and SOREALIST. Fin [more...]
PeterJukes Online now · Joined Nov 2/05
's: 1159 · Audience 342 · Fans: 183

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thumbup 2:24am · Edit · Del porn
full circle too / c h r o m a s i a [chromasia.com]
Thanks again to classy Klassy for her curvacious stumbles, and to colourful Greenblue

THE SILENT CHILD

The boy was looking for his voice
(The king of crickets had stolen it)
deep inside a water drop
the boy was looking for his voice



I don't want it for talking
I want it to make a ring
that my reticence can wear
around its little finger



Deep inside a water drop
the boy was looking for his voice



(Meanwhile in the distance
the voice was dressed up like a cricket)

Translated by Peter Jukes from El Niño Muda by Lorca

 

thumbup 2:23am · Edit · Del stumblers
Miyukis reviews [stumbleupon.com]
Thanks to Ulkagotyk for alerting me to Adlrel but I'm devoting this poem to lovely Miyuki and her dancing whirling stumbles
Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting


SPANISH DANCER

As a match when struck will sputter white,
before flames break, licked with hot
phosphorous tongues - so tonight
volatile, explosive, the audience watch
while her dance starts to flicker into life.

And all at once the whole place is ablaze.



A flash of the eye and she ignites her hair
then whirling faster fans her dress
into ferocious flames. Now she's a furnace
from which two startled rattlesnakes dart
hissing and clicking, her naked arms.

But now the fire has gone too far
clinging to her waistline, she flings it down,
holding her head disdainful and proud,
watching it blaze upon the ground -
flames that rage and refuse to die.

Then, with in a slow sure step and a sweet
triumphant smile, she looks up one last time
and stamps it out with small momentous feet.

Version by Peter Jukes from Rilke's Spanish Dancer


First photo is a still from Blood Wedding - favourite playwright, life changing film
 

thumbup Oct 22, 11:28am · Edit · Del stumblers
Caravaggios reviews [stumbleupon.com]
Thanks to the peerless Caravaggio for the image, this is one of my very first poems, written when I was 16


DESIRE

Desire is the asp
Is the twisting
In my breast
She changes, Time and
Space, or else
Not here to change

Love was always reaching:
Chubby hands that grasped
An apron as it passes.
And when the fingers were strong
Brown lined, agile
Around the pillow and your head
The eyes eluded me.

The appeal of appealing
Eyes, that vacuous
Kiss of fire, desire
Is not there or
Then, but in
Remembering.

Peter Jukes 1977
 

thumbup Oct 21, 3:05pm · Edit · Del photography
Tests - 19/37 [marktucker.com]


WHEN HE LAUGHS

For Alexander

When he laughs
It's like a waterfall
A torrent
So vivid and clear it washes you back

To apples so big they have to be held
In both hands
To running with only the breeze on your skin
Clapping yourself on each new word you form
Biting your hands with excitement
Lying down rolling over
With excitement

To being fearful of poppies and knots in the wood
Sure there's a spider hid in each blade of grass
Seeing the moon begging to be lifted up up up
Knowing we are always here to catch you

When I was a child
I played with childish things
Now I am a man
I play with my children

Peter Jukes 1993

 

thumbup Oct 21, 3:03pm · Edit · Del photography
Tests - 12/37 [marktucker.com]
 

thumbup Oct 21, 2:13pm · Edit · Del photography
Bad Times For Croquet. by ~deseriedouleur on deviantART [deviantart.com]


NEW TORTURES

When reality bites
And the knives are out

The greater the love
The more to suffer

From poem sequence Black Water: White Oak by Peter Jukes 1999
 

thumbup Oct 17, 11:08pm · Edit · Del internet
Alyssa Monks - Remote [sarahbaingallery.com]



TOGETHER OR APART

Together
Or
Apart

Much easier to see
Just one dilemma
In the frame of forever
See it now

Together
Or
Apart




But unpick the words
Suspect the simplicity

Apart could be
Communing despite miles
A constant presence
Like a subtitle in your life
Apart could be
The meaning you hold
Like two strings vibrating
To the same note




Unpick the words

Together might mean
Cleaving down the middle
Inseparable as a wound
Dependent as enemies
Demanding as
A beggar's bowl
Imploring the pennies
That make you poor




Unpick the meaning, unpack the words
Go beyond the dilemma

See us both
Standing here

And listen to the world
Beneath the footsteps
And murmur of voices
And the passing cars
The world is so quiet
So quiet




And we have to keep
Ourselves
Together

And stop
Being
A part

Peter Jukes 1999
 

thumbup Oct 16, 5:03pm · Edit · Del internet
earth album alpha - a google maps + flickr mash-up with a side of rails and [earthalbum.com]
The following images are some slightly faded snaps from my year living in India in the early 80s
Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

CHAOS

Now a windless haze suppresses
The accolade of the streets

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Sacred cows graze in traffic
Battered buses, rickshaws, bikes

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

An elephant lit up with electric bulbs
A man balancing aluminium chairs on his head

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

In the fields the chorus of mud-frogs never cease
The ears are filled but not with noise

Peter Jukes India 1983
 

thumbup Oct 16, 11:31am · Edit · Del stumblers
zoniek.stumbleupon.com [stumbleupon.com]
Inspirational images courtesy of Zoniek


FAREWELL

And when I go
leave the window open

The boy is eating oranges
(I see him from my window)

The reaper is cutting down the corn
(I hear him from my window)

So when I go
leave the window open

Translated by Peter Jukes from Lorca's Despedida


THE OPEN WINDOW

A window open
Onto the blue
Wide as an ocean
Far as a moon

Through the window
Into the sky
In the urge to fall is
The wish to fly


On perfunctory lovers
Fumbling in the night
The open window
Sheds its light

Into atmospheres stifled
With suppressed despair
The open window
Releases air

Through silences so laden
They drop like weights
The open window
Reverberates

When walls close in
Without a sound
When feet feel unbearably
Anchored to the ground
The open window is
One way out

A window open
Onto the blue
Wide as an ocean
Far as a moon

Through the window
Into the sky
In the urge to fall
The wish to fly


Peter Jukes 1987

 

thumbup Oct 15, 11:13pm · Edit · Del stumblers
hope.stumbleupon.com [stumbleupon.com]
Thanks to the inestimable stumbler hope for the visual inspiration


ICE

I was happy
Playing
My part

She fired
A sliver
Of ice into my heart

I shrugged it off
I danced
I laughed
The ice went deeper
Into my heart

I worried at it
I picked I squeezed
My punctured heart
Began to bleed



So I ran away
And ran so fast
It stabbed me every
Beat of my heart

I went to sleep
And overnight
My heart had hardened
Into ice

So now I'm famous
For my emptiness
I am a suitor
Of the ice empress

Peter Jukes 1987

 
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Links and Contact Details

Live Tweeting

Over the last few years I've created some attention with my live coverage of the phone hacking trial in London, the most expensive and longest concluded criminal trial in British history. There are various accounts and articles about this on the web, including a radio play. My Twitter feed can be found here, and a collation of evidence from the trial, and all my live tweets, can be found at my Fothom Wordpress blog. There's also a Flipboard magazine and a Facebook Page. My Klout ranking is here.

More Journalism and Books

Various journalistic articles of mine are scattered throughout the web. There's some kind of portfolio at Muckrack. The most extensive reporting is for the Daily Beast and Newsweek, but there's more at the New Statesman, the New Republic, Aeon etc. I have two non fiction books published in the last year: The Fall of the House of Murdoch, available through Unbound or Amazon, and Beyond Contempt: the Inside Story of the Phone Hacking Trial, available via Canbury Press or also on Amazon. I am currently contributing to a new site for open source journalism, called Bellingcat, and advisor (along with Sir Harry Evans and Bill Emmott) to an exciting new crowdfunded journalism startip Byline

Getting in Contact

My generic email is my first name at peterjukes.com. That should get through to me pretty quickly. My Linked In profile is here. For non journalistic inquiries, for television stage and film, contact Howard Gooding at Judy Daish Associates. Examples of my television work can be found on IMDB. This links to the site for my forthcoming musical, Mrs Gucci. My radio plays can be found in various audiobook formats on Amazon and elsewhere.

 

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