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

???

I am Nobody
Emily Dickinson.

I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us -- don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog

To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!

???

Worlds fly by. Years pass. The great hole
Of the universe stares back blankly at us
While you, my shattered senseless soul
Harp on and on about happiness.

Happiness? What's that? Shadows of dusk
On dank grass in the thick of the wood.
Pleasure pickled in the putrid sweetness
Of wine, desire, and all the juices of the blood

Happiness? What is it? A moment's relief.
A brief spell of unconsciousness.
Then you're up and before you know it, off
on this senseless hurling whirligig.

A sigh. A respite. An instant suffice
to get back your breath, just enough
before the wheel turns, lurching to the side
on another plane, humming like a top.

And gripping for our lives to the steely wires,
deafened by a roar that never lets
we imagine in the blurs across our eyes
times and spaces, causes and effects

When will it stop? How can we stand
this reeling meaningless parade?
The world revolts us! Give me your hand
Brother, friend. Let's lose ourselves again.

Version by Peter Jukes of a poem by Alexander Blok

You won't find my soul
In my briefcase.
I checked it earlier
The lock was faulty and
Someone must have stolen it.

You won't find my soul
In my wardrobe either.
Somehow moths got in
And their hungry children
Have eaten it to shreds.

You won't find my soul in my cellar.
It's too dark and too damp
And a soul can't survive long
Among all that useless stuff
You keep but never need.

And my soul isn't useless.
I'm cold and poor without it.
It was supposed to be indestructible.
I'm sure I put it in a `safe place'
Maybe in my bookcase...

I pull out all the books,
Flick through all the pages,
Corners bent over, half read -
Something flutters out -

What was it? A moth?
An unsent letter? An illegible note?
Some dried seeds? Or a yellowed bus ticket
I don't remember buying
To a place I didn't visit.

Peter Jukes 2006

Hit
By the big saline wave
Of night

Caught
In the electric fizz
Of its foam

Then washed
Deep into sleep
Drawn under the sheets
Spun by the currents and turned on the tide

Till some storm
Tosses us back
Here on the cold dry shores of the morning
Naked and raw

Time to wake up!
Get into the shower
Wash the sand from my eyes
The salt from your back

The sound of the waves is receding

But there
On our mattress of sand
Our imprint is left
The curvature of your body
The restlessness of mine
Like a plaster cast
Of desire
Which these little words
Can't fill

Peter Jukes 2000

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

There's a moon in the sky
There's a light in your eye
As we walk through the mist

Without talking

The chill in the air
The thrill that you're here
All the best moments
Are stolen

Promises expectations
They always fail
Only the honesty of this moment stays

And though the winter's coming
We don't seem to mind
And though the leaves are falling
The leaves don't touch the ground

They never touch the ground

My plane's gotta go
Your coffee's getting cold
All the best moments
Are stolen

I could change my face
Change this time change this place
But the song on my lips
Isn't changing

Promises expectations
They always fail

And though the moment's fading
It never leaves my mind
And though your tears are falling
Your tears don't touch the ground

I won't let them
Touch the ground.

Peter Jukes 2006

Though completely amateurish, and my first attempt at recording, here at least is the melody of the song.

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