Rich but impotent, young yet over-age,

Detesting the fawning of his teachers,

Tired of his lap dogs and other creatures.

Nothing amuses him, hunting, falconry,

His people expiring before his balcony.

Even the jests of his favourite fool

Won’t smooth the frowns of this cruel recluse.

His petal-strewn bed has become a tomb,

And his handmaidens, who make most princes swoon,

Can’t find outfits scandalous enough

To raise a flicker from his immaculate corpse.

The alchemist who transmutes gold from lead

Fails to draw from him that poisonous element.

And those baths of blood the Romans conceived,

Which even in old age gave tyrants relief…

Can’t even stir the veins of this lethargic flesh

Where the green sludge of Lethe runs instead.

Translated by Peter Jukes from Spleen by Charles Baudelaire

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

And one time he was leading her through the darkness
And then another time she was leading him
The first time he reached out to touch her
She withdrew but searched and found his hand again

Towards the certainty of never
From the uncertainty of now
Through the certainty of pain
To the uncertainty of joy

Not Orpheus and his muse
But two lost children
Like Hansel and Gretel
Walking through the dark

Their hands only parting
Searching on the path
For whatever breadcrumbs
The birds might have ignored

Peter Jukes 1999

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

Wisdom has been called

Learning how to die

But death is stupid

Forgetting everything

Unlearning all those lessons

How to eat

How to wash yourself

How to defecate

How to breathe

Like an orchestra in reverse

Losing tempo, expression

Measure by measure

Detuning the instruments

Breaking the strings

Until the meaning is lost

Vague, inarticulate

Half formed on your lips

Something… no it’s gone

O death is so stupid

Forgetting who you are

You who taught me

Everything

Peter Jukes March 17th 2004

Among your many admirers, all
who flock and hang on your every word,
who laugh and call your name out loud
sits one, like a shadow on the wall:
a drink his only company all night,
and regardless of what you say or do
keeps a watch on your every move,
Till, when the juke box comes alive
Drums beat, bass strums, he turns
to the window and recalls the light
blotted out by the approaching storm
and disturbed by your dancing moving form
thinks of the poems he has yet to write.

Peter Jukes – version of a poem by Alexander Blok

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

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

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 could write the saddest poems tonight.

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

A night breeze swings round the sky and sings.

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

On nights like this I held her in my arms.
Kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

How she loved me, and sometimes I loved her.
How could I not love her big deep eyes?

I could write the saddest poems tonight.
To think I don’t have her. To feel that 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? Still I could not keep her.
The night is full of stars but she is here no more.

That is all. Someone sings. Far away. In the distance.
My soul will not rest because I have lost her.

My eyes look, longing to bring her closer.
My heart searches but can find her no longer.

Now the same night whitens the same trees,
Back then we were one and the same but no more.

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

Another. She’ll yield to another. To my kisses once,
Her voice, her light body. Her endless eyes.

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

Because on nights like this I held her in my arms.
My soul will not rest because I have lost her.

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

Translated by Peter Jukes from ‘Puedo Escribir’ by Pablo Neruda.