Once again, forgive the amateur singing and playing but this lyric needs the music.

Sheets still warm from the dryer
I spread them on my bed
And I look for some reminder
But there's nothing of you left.

No trace of you in the shower
Who would've known you'd been
Oh so lovely in my mirror
Like a portrait or a dream?

There's nothing between us
No future and no hope
It was just
One of those moments
And we should let it go
Let it go

What was there between us?
Some lipgloss on a glass.
Oh and where did you leave fingerprints?
A thread from your pink scarf?

Others always wanted something from me
You took me for who I was
And you loved me for no other reason
Than the logic of your heart.

There's nothing between us
No mortgages, no rings
It was just
One of those crazy
Temporary things

I drove so fast to the airport
I think you'd thought you'd die
And I died a little in the car park
You knew and kissed my eyes.

I said 'I hope you have a good summer'
And when you thought I'd gone
You cried and dropped your passport
But I was watching all along

There's nothing between us... (repeat)

Never anything between us
No promise, no goals
No lies, no disguise
So tell me why
I let you go?

But no
It's not over
I can't forget
That feeling

And yes
I don't expect
Whoever said
It would be easy?

But when
I see you there
It all makes sense
It is so easy

Easy
It's easy
No scarf
No thread
No sheets
No bed
In
Our skin
It's easy
You and me
Nothing
In between

Peter Jukes 2006

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

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

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.

I could write the saddest poems tonight.

Write, for example, how “The night is full of stars,
Cold and blue they shiver in the distance.”

The wind swings round the sky and sings.

I could write the saddest poems tonight.
How I loved her. How sometimes she loved me.

On nights like this I held her in my arms.
Kissed her endlessly under a boundless sky.

How she loved me. How sometimes I loved her.
How could I not fall for those deep wide eyes?

I could write the saddest poems tonight.
To know I don’t have her. To feel I’ve lost her.

To hear the immense night, more immense without her.
These words condense on my soul like dew on the grass.

What does it matter? In the end I couldn't keep her.
The night is full of stars but she isn't here.

That's it. Someone sings. Far away. In the distance.
But my soul cannot rest because now she's gone.

My eyes roam, hoping to bring her closer.
My heart searches but cannot find her any more.

The same night whitens the same trees,
We were one and the same then but not now.

I don’t love her any more, but how I loved her.
My voice charmed the wind to caress her ears.

She surrenders.  To my kisses once to another now 
She surrenders her voice, her light body. Her fathomless eyes.

I don’t love her any more, but right now I love her.
Love is so short and oblivion so long.

On nights like this I held her in my arms and now
My soul will not rest because I have lost her.

Though this be the final grief she gives me,
And this the last poem I ever write her.

Translated by Peter Jukes from 'Puedo Escribir' by Pablo Neruda.

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

I don’t love you like you were topaz or beach rose
Or the arrow of carnations darting from a fire.
I love you like one loves some dark unknown things
Surreptitiously, between shadow and soul.

I love you like the plant that doesn’t flower but
Hides within itself the brilliance of flowers;
Thanks to your love, deep inside my flesh lives
That enthralling aroma that rises from the earth.

I love you without knowing how, when or wherefore.
I love you unswervingly, without problem or pride;
In short. I love you because I know no other way

Other than this one, where there is no me or you,
So close that your hand on my chest is my hand ,
So close that you shut your eyes when I fall asleep.

*

No te amo como si fueras rosa de sal, topacio
o flecha de claveles que propagan el fuego:
te amo como se aman ciertas cosas oscuras,
secretamente, entre la sombra y el alma.

Te amo como la planta que no florece y lleva
dentro de sí, escondida, la luz de aquellas flores,
y gracias a tu amor vive oscuro en mi cuerpo
el apretado aroma que ascendió de la tierra.

Te amo sin saber cómo, ni cuándo, ni de dónde,
te amo directamente sin problemas ni orgullo:
así te amo porque no sé amar de otra manera,

sino así de este modo en que no soy ni eres,
tan cerca que tu mano sobre mi pecho es mía,
tan cerca que se cierran tus ojos con mi sueño.

Translated by the Original by Peter Jukes 2009