Austin Princess

On Sunday afternoons
He would escape with her,
To a lay-by where rocky outcrops
Ran like mascara down the hillside.

Away from the Battenberg lawn,
The spotless rooms with curtains
Drawn. Far from the silence behind
Their tight-lipped front door.

And sit awhile with windows down
Listening to Piccadilly 261 stereo 97,
The Pennine air sending him to sleep
His arm resting on the back of her seat.

One time they came to watch a distant
Chimney being felled, and when the dust
Settled saw it crumpled but defiant,
Like a giant knight on bended knee.

He remembered then how the distant chimneys
Would smoke day and night like his father,
Blue clouds curling like serpents
Round his legs, then cowering at his feet.

But he didn’t share the sound of Dad’s shoes,
And how they squeaked like an old pub sign
In a storm, when he climbed the stairs.
Some things she did not need to know.

October 2019
Simon Denegri

When I pulled alongside
I heard the thumping start,
A pounding so loud I thought
It came from my racing heart.

They were out to get me,
These angry thugs whose phelgm
I could feel on my face. I am sure.
So I made monsters out of them.

Thanked my cowardly stars,
That the spick and span white van
Whose stop lights bled into the wet night
Would soon have them behind bars.

But as they sank from view –
Down the slipway into darkness,
I realised it was the sound of boys
Drowning to which I had been witness.

Simon Denegri
September 2019

I went round to yours today to fit your new DVD player.
You said that there was ‘nothing on TV these days’
And it would be good watch to some of your old DVDs
But you couldn’t get your old machine to work.
I like the fact that you call it a machine.

So I called round. It was about 4pm. It was getting dark.
I drove to yours through pot-holed country lanes
Where no one knows how to give way anymore –
Especially parents in 4x4s with children. They tend to drive
In an entitled sort of way. Just saying.

(Did you know some of those cars have DVD players in the seat-backs?)

Your new DVD was in the boot.
I bought if for you for Christmas.
It was cheap. But good enough for watching ‘The Queen.’
Seasons 1 and 2.

I unplugged the old machine and untangled the wires.
I could feel you getting agitated as you sat behind me.
As if I was turning off some sort of life support.
I imagined a sign with DNM on it – Do Not Mess.
In big letters.
It’s a reasonable request at eighty-six.

‘How will I get the news?’ You said. And I explained.
But I could see that you didn’t understand, you didn’t follow.
So I explained it to Mum and she said she you would work it out.
But I could tell she wanted to make some tea.
This wasn’t in the routine. Who am I to mess?

So when I finished I tried to write down all the instructions for how to use
Your new DVD player. Because you now have three remote controls.
A big one. A medium-sized one. And a small one. Just like the three bears.
Only they each do different things and none of them is just right.
That takes some explaining. Even I am confused.

And tonight I just feel guilty.
For fixing something that wasn’t broken.
For disrupting. For not really listening. For patronising.
For wanting to be the son that makes everything ok.
For making you feel one-step removed from ‘normal.’
For making you feel remote from that which is yours.

Simon Denegri
January 2019

More often than not I include some poetry as part of my ‘out of office’ message. Sometimes it is my own verse. Sometimes it’s someone else’s. The following is on my Christmas ‘out of office.’ Still a little undecided what to title it.

The night, his sieve and the moon

We stepped out this misty morning

And found our world packed away.

It was as if God had sent us ‘next day’

Delivery to a far flung place.

We listened to our muffled voices and laughed

‘Is this what it feels like to be a gift?’

Roadside saplings stepped from the mist

Like children shedding winter coats.

And the sun peered behind misted glass,

A loved one coming to the door.

And then we walked across servings 

Of frosted fields and realised that

Night had tapped his sieve

Against the moon last night.

Simon Denegri

December 2018

Confetti I, II, III, IV

I

Warm evening rain washes
Down stone, church steps,
Sending confetti scurrying
Between the cobbles;
T-shirted tourists hurrying
Through the streets of a Spanish town.

II

An innocent paper heart
Carried off the dance-floor
On the sole of a dancing shoe.
Then pushed to the back of a cupboard.
A love unrequited,
But not forgotten.

III

Freshly-made, the newly-weds
Fell upon the bed,
And unbuttoned each other’s hearts.
With nervous kisses they caressed
New paths over tired bodies,
Their lips picking confetti on the way.

IV

The maid stood before the mirror
And watched confetti
Fall into the sink
From her untied hair.
A lost soul fallen
Overboard.

Simon Denegri
December 2018

We may be born to the lark or owl
But some of us will leave to empty
Benches.

Here lies a distant relative. Whose
Birthday and Christmas cards would
Arrive on time, a £5 note
Pressed inside.

The Minister shovels his sodden, rotten
Words until they fall in clumps to join the
Heavy clods of graveside clay.

Here lies a distant relative
In whose oak cupboard we used to hide.
It now seems to be on its side, with her
Inside.

Even God wants this over with, quickly. His fingers of
Rain drum impatiently upon the casket
And gravedigger’s wooden running boards.

We stare into the neatly dug hole and in
This instant, I realise this is the most real
You have ever been to me.

Here lies a distant relative.

Simon Denegri
December 2019