A Christmas Present for the World

While solving the ills of the world
I found the problem quite knurled
Our greatest desire
Is what fans the fire
It’s best if the world is degirled!

‘Twas Eve caused the sin of old Adam
(The only two balls, well, he had’em)
When she had her way
(And a bloody good lay)
She chose to become the first Madam.

Then having three sons and no girls
Forced Abel to grow golden curls
By smiling at Seth
As tho he were Beth
He caused Cain to kill him. The swirls

Of history recorded since then
From Troy to the Anglian fen
Shows jealousy causes
Most all of the warses*
And killing of all rival men.

This season of goodwill on Earth
And all of its subsequent mirth
Would never be lost
At quite a small cost;
And that is that men could give birth.

Thus solving the problem we’re cursed
With, hunting for gluttons of wurst.
Complete femicide
On the distaffy side
Is the step we should take if we durst.

*In defiance of Clause 873 of the Limerick Code.

Polly Lim; Troy Buswell

Sheep

Our weeds are now growing quite hewge,
The sheep will be having a chewge
They eat up their greens,
They’d best leave my beans
Or they might end up in a stewge!

Jayne, Again

I think, with desire, I’ve gone insane,
I’ve bounced off your chest yet again
But now that we’re here
Please don’t shed a tear
I did it on purpose, dear Jayne.

Meeting Jayne

While investigating sweet Jayne,
I checked out her cleavage again.
She swung with the right,
And, tho’ what a sight,
Has broked by dose. Oh the pain!

The best looking semi-concealed weapon in town!

Starfish

Cucumber Sandwich

Oh, Azul, it’s now time for tea
A cucumber sandwich for me
But what is this stench?
You naughty young wench –
A tunafish cucumber, I see!

Poetic Forms

The lim and the sonnet and ode
All take a quite different road
The lines and the rhymes
And the rhythmical chimes
Are fixed and are set for each mode.

Flowers

Smothered

Ærchie complained bitterly:

I’m lonely, and sad and bereft
Deserted by muses who left.
I now cannot write
With scansion thats tight
And thoughts of a bosomly cleft.

Michelle offering comfort, wrote:

Oh Ærchie come here now come here
You may weep in my bosoms my dear
You are no longer bereft
Of a bosomly cleft
In my bosoms you will just disappear!

Ærchie replied, with deep appreciation:

Michelle you’re a sight for sore eyes
Your bosoms eliciting sighs
But please do not heave
I DO like to breathe
And utter appreciative cries

Ærchie

As I heavily breathe in and out
I see your arms a-flailing about
I take a deep breath
And you are near death
If you’re drowning then PLEASE give a shout!!!

Michelle

I love being mothered and covered
in bosoms that likely have smothered
my brothers, step-brothers
half-brothers and others
whose sources are still undiscovered

Ærchie – getting my breath back

a.j.l. may 24 2000

Pygmalion and Galatea

Jean Léon Gérôme (1824-1904)

 

To which Marty replied thusly

A Lack Of Limerick Inspiration

A dearth of our favourite verse
Is sad but then whats even worse
Because it is sadder
And makes me much madder –
The lack of wild exploits perverse

 

Luckily I have a lot of archives – – –

Julie London

ANOTHER TIME, ANOTHER PLACE

Through a tiny rip in the fabric of time, the 1970’s slipped a tendril of psychodelia into 1998.

Marty had written, “Pay attention to the little voices. I do whatever they tell me!”

kiss wrote

The voices are mumbling to me
But they’re not speaking very clearly
Speak they of towels?
And what are those howls?
It must be the wind in the tree…

 

archie wrote:

We’ve all missed this very strange plot,
For tablets we no more have got.
That tree has its OWLS
And some of my towels,
Wait, now it’s beginning to trot.

If Marlene stays inside her head,
And if I can use mine instead
That big bright green sky,
(Where elephants fly)
Will kill all the dragons stone dead!

Marlene, it’s now safe to come out
Although all the hippos are stout.
I’ve saved you again
From the sound of Big Ben.
But kiss let the butterflies out!

Archie –

everything seems normal from here.

 

kiss wrote – the confusion is persistent…

The butterflies hold up the sky
The elephants pissed in my eye
The dragons live still
They’re not easy to kill
But since when did fat hippos fly?

Burgers

Sometimes I think the joy of a limerick is that it so closely matches normal speech.

For example here are two perfect limericks which are unformatted.

Two fries and a hash brown to go, some hotcakes and syrup I’ll stow with three nice big Macs in takeaway sacks. Now how much for this do I owe?

Is that with a coffee today? On a tray or is this takeaway? That’s ten ninety five, take care how you drive, enjoy your meal, have a nice day.

Weeds

Our weeds are now growing quite hewge,
The sheep will be having a chewge
They eat up their greens,
They’d best leave my beans
Or they might end up in a stewge!

Predatory

From the easel of Olivia DeBarardinis

Dorothy Dunnett

A Dorothy Dunnett book read
(She really gets inside my head.)
Where nothing is simple,
Not even a dimple,
And plots are all twists – and unsaid!

COMPUTERS

We all love our ‘poota’s, don’t we.

And Bill Gates for being the provider of all things computic.

Explorer sucks, it’s just the pits

I want my old Netscape, it fits.

But till I upgrade

‘Scape stays in the shade;

But Gatesware just gives me the shits!

For anything posted, McCoogle

Don’t load up your puter with droogle

Try using a search

And for a great perch

The engine is best when it’s Google.

Tho if you have got the dry heaves

From drinking the juice of the sheaves

Then maybe it’s best

(The butler won’t rest)

Be daring and simply ask Jeeves!

This bloody Windows solitaire

Wastes so much more time than I care

To admit to or

(Don’t ask my high score)

Discuss with anyone out there.

Post Gibbous Moon

From Boris’s own web site

A Riddle

Although we may think they’re just tights
To him they are his suit of lights
And they can get torn
If he gets a horn
Performing some old pagan rites.

(¡ǝsɹnoɔ ɟo ‘ɹǝʇɥƃıɟllnq ɥsıuıɐds ɐ)

The Lioness

Down-Under is what I do like
With you above me, poised to strike.
With one single lunge
You’ll then take the plunge – – –
I may end with a teeth damaged psych!

So, tho the request may sound trite
And all of those teeth are a sight
So white and so strong
And fright’ningly long –
Be gentle when you take a bite

Perseus

Boris Vallejo

Suzi

A wild night with Suzi, head banging,
That “48 Crash” she was sanging,
And “Devil Gate Drive”.
She is so alive,
But after she stops my head’s ranging!

Christopher Robin

While Christopher Robin was saying
His prayers and Eyore was braying
‘Bout eating the grass,
I found his fine arse
And made him a much gayer neigher!

Eunuchs

For guarding the harem use Eunuchs
They work best if left with their pricks
So a slide down two planks
Then they only fire blanks
Their bollocks are squashed ‘tween two bricks

I see by your look, you’re distraught
This tale a new question has brought
“I don’t want to be curt
But doesn’t it hurt?”
“It wont ‘less your fingers get caught!”

(old prose joke, retold)

Mysterious

This took me three days to write

No Bread

They had no bread on their plate
So Marie said, “Now listen here mate,
Young Kate is quite tasty
They may like a pastry
So why don’t we let them eat Kate?”

Poor Kay

A fun theme in the Limerick form is the “Tom Swift”. A self-referential verse.

Ericka wrote

“Dear Kay may I speak to you frankly?
I know that you’ve been feeling dankly.
But your suicide
will just be implied –
those bullets won’t work.” said Tom blankly.

Ærchie shot back this reply

Poor Kay, who found life somewhat slavely
Tried ending it, often quite knavely.
“One day she just might
Do everything right
Then we’ll have to dig” said Tom gravely

Romancing

I tried to romance young Kaylin
Disguising my need for some sin
Now she’s gone and hid
Rejecting my bid
And I’m left with a barful of gin!

So I’ll go no more a’romancing
I wont even take them out dancing
To ease off my lust
I’ll do what I must
Cos even Ms Palmer’s entrancing

Heracles

Boris Vallejo, king of the SF atrists

Protecting

Marty, my “lim-sister”, wrote –

My little old brother, Arch, who
Comes in here to lim’rick with you,
Makes sure that I’m good.
I wish that he would
Find some other hobby to do.

And was replied to thusly –

Now Marty, I AM your big brother
You know that I promised our mother
To keep you from harm
Despite all your charm
And not let you loose with another.

Recumbent

More Vargas

Enya

A quiet night list’ning to Enya
Reality loses its tenure
That Celtic music
Takes me back real quick
To previous lives spent in Erin’a

Whore from Nantucket

There was a dead whore from Nantucket
Whose body was kept in a bucket
Located by Dave
Quite deep in a cave.
So deep, in fact, he said, fuck it!

(combining the two most ubiquitous lims of all time)

Meaning

Defining the meaning of meaning
Requires a complete mind spring cleaning,
Significant thoughts,
Some old tawny ports
And maybe a thorough Poteening.

The Seams

Vargas is a delight to write on 

Launch

A fog of cold gas spread around
And zero is reached in countdown;
A pillar of flame –
Each time it’s the same,
My dreams soar but I’m left, earthbound.

While watching a shuttle launch

From Ærchiette

I’ll help you to soften your bone
I’ll wriggle and then I will moan
Wont do it for money
But then again, honey,
I’ll accept a permanent loan!

Ærchiette

Boozed

I’m suff’ring badly from booze
Soon out of my pores it will ooze
The evil Jim Beam
Is not such a dream
And now I’ve been sick in my shoes!!!

Three gins, and two bourbons, one beer
Champagne, some red wine with no peer
Retsina and rum
With Pernod, by gum
My head in the morning, I fear!

You all know I’m not one for fawning
But I wish Arch would start on his yawning
The idiot’s drunk
Should be in his bunk
I’ll laugh at his head in the morning!

(by “Ron, the keyboard from Hell”)

Ron would have been a useful literary construct.

If the word “Literary” can be used anywhere near a limerick!

Barbarians

Returning from rapine and pillage
Barbarians take food from the village
They eat all the cows
and several sows
And destroy most all of the tillage!

Agony

One of the famous 1990’s images from when cyberspace was new

(I think this one’s by Jule§ from Adelaide)

Flies

I often have flies on my fly
And NO, I will not tell you why
But my rapid erection
means natural selection
If they are too slow then they die!

A Round Tuit

The lims that come out of our cruet
Sometimes they will cause us to do it
It’s a matter of time
I’ll sit down and rhyme
As soon as I get a round tuit.

Eve

There once was a lady named Eve
Who did things you wouldn’t believe
With uncut cucumbers
And horny young plumbers
And a Dachshund she wants to retrieve!!!

Three Mistress’s

A problem the Good Book addresses
On workers it tries to impress’s
That serving two masters
Creates big disasters
‘Tis worse to be serving three mistress’s

Thoughts on attempting to work on three one act plays with three different directors – all female. All I wanted to do was to play with the lights!

Adam

We (the Limericks Newsgroup) went through a stage of Illustrated Limericks

This was created by Marty

Elephants

While scattering torn paper bits
Friends asked why? (It gave them the shits.)
“Keeps elephants away.”
“There’s none!” They did say,
“It’s working!” Arch said, dodging hits!

Work

I was kicked out of work on my ass,
When the Boss happened to pass
My untidy desk,
On which was the text –
“Work is the curse of the Limerick Class!

Barb

Our Barb’ had a mouth like an “O”
And squatted right down really low
Her teeth she then hid
For the job that she did
Was the type that’s described as a blow!