Accidental haiku

A person can safely go through their whole lives without accidentally uttering a limerick. Ninety nine per cent of the time, they can avoid the possibility of saying something that just happens to be a rhyming couplet. Spontaneous outbursts of completely new epic verse and odes are well-nigh impossible. But what about accidental haiku? We're probably doing them all the time.

Oh bugger. I think
I forgot to pack my snack
Today. I'm hungry.

It would take an exceptional effort of will and determination to avoid uttering accidental haiku.

Would you like herbal?
I'll just pop the kettle on.
It'll be ready soon.

Most of the time we don't count the syllables in our sentences as we're saying them. Accidental haiku could be happening all over the place, and we don't even know about it. That wouldn't stop the critics, though. 'Derivative', they would say to you, with little encouragement. 'That haiku was a worn-out example of a tired poetic genre', they could say. 'Unoriginal, and not particularly expressive of the struggles of the working classes.'

That jumper looks nice
On you. You should wear that one
To work today, love.

The more you know about poetry, the worse it gets. You could cut accidental haiku out of your life, but what's to stop you suddenly bursting out with a six word fiction, an accidental aphorism, or a mini-saga?

Nope. Bugger. Damn. Nope, still doesn’t work. I’ll turn it this way… little bit more… little bit more. OUCH! No, no, I’m all right. Hmmm. Let me just look at it from this… nope, no use. I can’t screw it from here. Hmmm.

Why don’t we just call the plumber?

Even the most doctorly doctor of literature may not be able to help it if, from time to time, they utter a rare verse form originating in Scandinavia involving 79 words, 33 syllables, and three rhyming verbs.

One of these days, it's even possible that a politician may accidentally utter something that is meaningful. It's becoming less and less likely that they'll do it on purpose, after all.