When Rebecca gave me the words thrilled, modern and inspired, I had no idea what I would do with them, though the word ‘thrilled’ seems to me so often prefaced with the word ‘really’. When I started work on the poem I had just been working on a blog post about repetition, and wondered if I could somehow use the technique in this poem. It was as I started writing that the idea to repeat the word ‘really’ came to me, but it was only after I’d finished that I thought of the play on words with real/really estate.
Anyway, here’s the poem.
Really Estate
‘I am really thrilled to meet you
Follow me now. Come this way!’
Trilled the eager estate agent
At the home open today.
‘You will really be inspired
By the things that you will see
In this modern, marvellous mansion
Come along now. Follow me!’
We were really very nervous
But we hurried down the hall.
Tried to ignore dirt and mildew
That was oozing from each wall.
Mum was really disconcerted
By the holes in every floor
And the eerie sounding creaking
Every time we touched a door.
Dad was really worried
By the cobwebs overhead
Plus the smell from the old kitchen
And the worse one in the shed.
But what really got me worried
And it would have scared you too
Was the ghostly weepy wailing
That was coming from the loo.
We were really rather hasty
As we raced out to the road
‘Wait!’ shrieked the poor agent,
‘I haven’t fully showed
How really really awesome
This lovely house can be.’
But her pleas on us were wasted
We had other homes to see.
(© Sally Murphy, 2015)
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