"Sorry Sean"

I've got this strange turn of phrase
Where I a call everyone else
"A proper poet"!
Deep down that's what
I'm trying to be...
If only I'd be
Prepared to show it.
Beining in denial's
"Pwopa Nawty"
As Danny Dyer might say.
I'm a Sarf Lunnon
'Apprentice Poet'
The wrong side of forty.
Who finds a round of applause
Is wonderful...
Buzzing in my head
Other times it's stony silence
Which deep down we all dread
The best thing about not being a 'proper' one
Is you don't really give a fuck
And if you then 'die on stage'
File it away under 'bad luck'.
Now when I say 'die on stage'
I don't mean like Tommy Cooper
Not literally...
Though his spirit is something
We can all learn from
Battling on like a trooper.
I'm not on medication
Proving you don't have to
Be diagnosed crazy
To be a writer
Even if there's a thin line
Between insanity
And life being brigher.
I re-discovered poetry
For the first time
Since I was a teen
Too scared to ponder
Of those wasted years inbetween.
Poetry's my sort of personal therapy
That I use to keep me sane.
In just over two years I am fifty
Making up for wasted time.
Despite the fact I'm not posh
I've learnt poetry's neither
Poncy mor a crime.
I sometimes feel held back
By lack of multi-syllabled verse
In my head words should be fancy
Which I find a bit of a curse.
But if I can do it so can you
Writing's no longer scary
Or particularly hard
Pick up a pen and join me
Another working class bard.

Dulwich Poet 2nd July 2014

(I wrote this because I have a habit when talking to other poets, as describing everyone but me as 'proper poets', in particular a very talented one, on the Open Mic & London spoken word circuit called Sean)