Friday 5 April 2019

Even-Tempered


‘I’m not even joking,’ said Gemma.
Why ‘even’, though?
How about something
with a little more impact?

Fucking. That would work
for a lot of people.
I never used to swear in my poems.
I’m not fucking joking.

Or what about
putting the modifier
after the joking?
I’m not joking, probably.

The unnecessary addition of ‘even’
does rather give this phrase the ring
of the inarticulate and slightly huffy adolescent,
like the ubiquitously redundant ‘actually’.

Ackshully! The sort of word
my English teacher needed smelling salts
to recover from (along with ‘sort of’, ‘even’,
and, also, ending a sentence with a preposition.)

Maybe we should use ‘even’ more often;
actually, sort of.
Best get the smelling salts then.
I’m not even actually fucking joking, probably.

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