Drusilla was, and I hope, still is, a real person. She opened the batting for Oxford (Ladies of course). I played squash with her regularly but that, ALAS, was as far as it got.
'Gate' and 'gait' are OK rhymes if you are Chaucer but not now I think. I can't think how you would mend it. This month's challenge looks quite good. I look at my face in the hairdresser's mirror and rapidly take off my glasses so that it blurs. It looks better blurry.
'My mountain belly and my craggy face' says Ben Jonson. Well, he was fatter than me, but his verses were better. Here's something. It's an old thing reworked, but then, so was Drusilla.
Self Portrait
I like old things, and now I’m old I should
Be one of the old things I like to like.
I’ll take up archery. I’ll buy a bike.
Like hell. Since when was wishing any good?
Nothing can turn me into Robin Hood,
Hard pedalling brings my muscles out on strike,
I file good resolutions on the spike,
My promises collapse like rotten wood.
I could reread the whole of Kingsley Amis,
But Sky is showing cricket wall to wall.
I could write winning verses and be famous
Like Shakespeare or like Philip or like Seamus.
When I was young I wanted to be tall.
It isn’t any bloody good at all.
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