This poem is an example of what rain can do to you!  It rained yesterday and it rained today.  I sat inside (sic.) the café and watched the rain run down the wall to ceiling windows - which allowed me to see further rain fall freely outside as well.
     My tea arrived (without biscuit) and it wasn't made as strongly as usual.  My mood darkened.  The only thing that brightened this dull day was the cover of my new orange Chinese shop notebook.
     I did not wait, pen poised, for inspiration worthy of an opening page to strike, but started scribbling my usual inanities about the weather; something I had recently read; the purchase of one of my books; kids smoking just outside the front door of the cafe, and musing about the arty photograph I took of car headlights, reflected on concrete, through the rain streaked window in front of me.  It was not for nothing that the course I did last year with the Open University was Art of the Twentieth Century!

I mused that the photo might look good (i.e. even more arty) in black and white and commented,  "Experiments: making the best of a crap day."  So I took another photo.

     And then, because I sat for a moment with my chin resting on a hand, the idea for the first lines of the poem came to me: tactile inspiration.
     The body of the poem then came together over the next few pages in my notebook and gave me something substantial on which to work when it came to the computer.
     
     I suppose that it is natural for those of retired years to think about age and ageing.  I can remember as a school student learning snippets of poems by Yeats in which age was referred to as a caricature, a tattered coat upon a stick and other unflattering epithets.  When you are very young you can talk about the effects of getting older, but not truly understand until you know fully and totally that, for example, you will never, ever play squash in the way that you once did.  That is in a past that really is over - not, you understand that I was any good, but I achieved a satisfactory level of mediocrity.  And given sports and me, that was an achievement.
     I don't mean to belittle age, or to treat the advancing years as if all they are, is a series of endings.  I have written more poetry since I retired than I have written in the whole of the rest of my life.  And you, my reader, will have to judge if that is a good or bad thing!  I know, as far as I am concerned, my poetry writing has become one of the main inspirations in my creative life, and for that I am appreciative.

     So, this poem is about ageing, loosing weight and thinking about what my generation is making of the process.
     The reference to Dylan Thomas is only two words long, which firstly, is all you need for something so famous, and secondly, I think that I stay on the right side of the copyright laws.
     The title, as I am sure you will recognise, is a mis-quotation of one of my favourite movie lines from one of my favourite films.

Sorry, Mr. DeMille, I’m not ready for my close-up.

How like Cyrano’s nose

is that skin hanging

from my chin?

The answer?  Not at all.

His, was his, by rights.

Mine has been well nurtured

through the years:

excess/restraint; restraint/excess.

Until the elasticity

no longer copes, and

body’s cloth no longer cuts

itself to fit.

My jeans were made

for a much larger me;

they’re wearable with a

stout leather belt,

using the final hole –

the belt was long to start.

Alas, I am not Kayan,

so metal coils

can’t hide the flap;

while leather collars

link to things

I’d rather not pursue.

As each gram goes, I know its loss

will add to my apparent age,

as fat-plumped skin deflates,

to show the years I am.

I know that there are

exercises, guaranteed

to . . .

           

            But, what’s the point?

Is it an obligation

laid on us, as Baby Boomers,

(Leading Edge) to cheat

advancing years?  To show,

as well as say, that we are

different from the generations

gone before – and so much

luckier than those that

come behind?

If we decline to take

the ‘go gentle’ approach,

then what must take its place?

What adverb-adjective shall

we supply to act as motto

in the time we drag with us

throughout a different age?

I wonder how many times I have mentioned that I am of the Baby Boomer Generation and added that I am Leading Edge, it certainly seems to be something which has a firm place in my mind.  Perhaps it becomes even more significant to we individuals as we watch the world patently not fulfilling what our earlier lives led us to expect.  Something further to ponder on.