Weekly Short Stories Contest and Company! discussion
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Limericks
Alex, you say the nicest things! You've spoiled me completely. I hope your muse returns soon!I don't know that I really expect much participation on this thread. It just seemed a natural thing to set one up for another form, since the haiku thread is doing so well.
Here are some of my favorite limericks. I’ll post these because they’re the examples I keep in mind when I write this form. The first three are in A Golden Treasury of Poetry (Western Publishing Co., 1959), and there’s no attribution. Lines 3 and 4 of each are supposed to be indented.An epicure dining at Crewe
Once found a large mouse in his stew.
Said the waiter, “Don’t shout
And wave it about,
Or the rest will be wanting one, too!”
------------
A handsome young noble of Spain,
Met a lion one day in the rain.
He ran in a fright
With all of his might,
But the lion, he ran with his mane!
------------
There was a young man of Bengal
Who went to a fancy-dress ball,
He went, just for fun,
Dressed up as a bun,
And a dog ate him up in the hall.
Here are some more I liked enough to memorize years ago but that are not in the book. You can find them online. The one about the midget explorer is my all-time favorite.
I sat next the Duchess at tea.
It was just as I feared it would be:
Her rumblings abdominal
Were simply abominable,
And everyone thought it was me.
(Anonymous)
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There was an old man of Peru
Who dreamed he was eating his shoe.
He awoke in the night
In a terrible fright,
And found it was perfectly true.
(Anonymous)
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There was a young belle of old Natchez
Whose garments were always in patches.
When comment arose
On the state of her clothes,
She replied, “When Ah itches, Ah scratches.”
--Ogden Nash
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As the natives got ready to serve
A midget explorer named Merve;
“This meal will be brief,”
Said the cannibal chief,
“For this is at best an hors d’oeuvre.”
--Ed Cunningham
Wow. Haven't done a limerick since. . . middle school?They are pretty tough. I gotta make one in the future and post it on here. . . :)
On a "gravestone:"Here lies a woman named Snooki
Who hadn't in the world read a "booki!"
She spent days parties, just
then a one smacked her cuz
they thought her tan was not human, was "Ooki!"
I’m at lunch. Let me see what I can come up with to follow yours. My wife says Snooki is a person in a reality show.She sunned on the beach till midday:
lithe, long-haired and languid she lay;
but men left her alone
’cause she used Coppertone
when she should have bought Bain de Soleil.
I thought he was going to rhyme it with something else, but I’m glad for our PG-13 rating that he didn’t. You know what a stickler I am about that rating.
If you insist, I’ll try not to be so starchy and strait-laced about things . . .
I can’t help it. I’m prim and proper,the last whose phone lines are still copper.
When Miss Ada Leigh
pulls her pants off for me,
I protest but am too shy to stop her.
Al wrote: "Lol I don't even know who snooki is.... lol"She and pretty much about five or so other guys and girls "star" in a reality show called Jersey Shore.
They tried to each have a spin-off show individually I heard.
They didn't work out. . . probably because the "full effect" I guess is good when all are together. . .
and they probably all equal a 4.5 IQ.
Don't mind me, I'm ancient a "bore"I seem like technology is a snore
Worked on a computer when,
Was finished sentence then
Pushed the monitor. . . it crashed to the floor!
Oh yeah. . . we don't use typewriters much anymore.
When I was in college, no one I knew had heard of personal computers. Everyone still used typewriters. I was in graduate school when I first saw a personal computer. It was a Compaq. When it was closed up, it looked something like a big, plastic suitcase. I couldn’t imagine why anyone would want one.
That is actually, the poem written, mostly sarcastic. I kind of long to write on a typewriter. . . the last time I did I was probably seven years old.Did you know that typewriters are becoming more popular again? People who lack self-control are buying typewriters. . . since they do not have facebook and other social sites since they cannot reach the internet and the writers can make reports and stuff for school so they won't have the added temptation (!) to go on social sites. . .
Unless I had to, I’d never go back to using a typewriter for anything other than typing envelopes or filling out forms. For someone like me, a word processor is a dream come true.
I can’t believe I wrote that. My muse is in time out. Congratulations on your Selectric!
I watched her, breathless in my seat,as she motioned to me in the heat
with a sultry come-on,
and that smile, then was gone
when I absently touched the “Delete.”
I’ve considered trying to write when I’m not in the mood for it. It’s just that I’m hardly ever not in the mood for it.
There once was a beautiful beachThen a soaring of clouds caused it "unsweet"
The people ran to the fog,
ran into those "brogues,"
Were murdered by the pirates, their fleet!
Her spirit was cold, was untoldThis woman was known but legend sold
Her name was Bathory
Her story was slander story,
When her story was true. . . but too old.
I am trying to link to your first one. . . about Vlad. Lol.
The body lay In the coffin in May
The spirit was mad
The family was sad
And the coroner went away.
Wow, that really sucked.
These are great! This is a response to #30.She seemed to have stepped from an age
less hurried, more patient, more sage;
yet so young was she,
who had eyes but for me,
and a calming voice: auburn-haired Paige.
She bathed in their blood, and would sitwith her legs--oh, must I mention it?
When questioned at the trial,
some said with a strange smile
just how much she looked like Ingrid Pitt.
(This is in response to 36... awful, yes, but I've had writer's block all day.)Heard a thumping coming from the grave
And it whispered that blood it craved
With a shout, I ran out
Not taking the route
Just running, until my sanity waved
Lol, that's what I thought when I saw that.
Reduced by fear almost to gelatin,with no eartly language to spell it in,
I tore off the locks
and threw open the box
but to find myself facing Red Skeleton.
Here’s my reply to Kyra’s #40.I flee, nearly out of my wits,
from the coffin that thumps with what it’s
got inside, that smells soured.
I won’t be devoured
by some corpse’s gross wiggly bits!
Here’s my reply to #33:But the snake writhes and with a great “glup,”
in a sudden spasm throws me up
at the foot of the tree.
“That was awful!” says he,
“and the worst on which I’ve tried to sup.”
Michelle wrote: "The body lay In the coffin in May
The spirit. . .
Wow, that really sucked."
What do you mean it "sucked?" I liked it!
Was a poet named Poe was a storyHad a love for the macabre and gory
but he fell one day and
was found, street walk-land
was no longer anymore, legacy, "lorey."
That one I wished I made it really a capture of his life. It is so sad learning the stuff he and people he loved went through.
It had to flow this way. It makes me sad his last words as he was at the end of his life were "God, help my poor soul."
I, too, liked Michelle’s #36, but I couldn’t come up with a good response to it. It has a lot of atmosphere! I agree about Poe. I wish more was known about his life.
They knew there was no need to rush her,who wrecked her vault like an ice crusher;
rather than await her,
they sought the theater,
where Roderick worked as an usher.
You keep saying that, but I hope you don’t really mean it.
You keep saying that, but I hope you don’t really mean it (about being gone, not about missing us).
I don't know how I missed this thread! I used to love writing limericks.There once was a calico called Alistair
who started to mouse around M's rocking chair.
So M kicked at the cat
And told it to scat
to befriend Barney the mouse without hair.
“What’s happened to Barney?” asked Phil.Said Narvis, “He looked deathly ill--
ate some bad muffaletta,
I was told by Loretta.
He’s asked Ray to type him a will.”
Thank you M! And yours is very funny! But I'm off to do chores.
Ray typed, until his paws were sore,a last will with provisions galore,
then regarded, stunned, blinking,
something heaved up and stinking
that Barney’d bequeathed to the floor.
I’ve heard that Barney’s his old self again.
Nice to read that, M, because Barney's needed in the next limerick.There once was a mouser named Harry
Who thought himself being most scary
But Barney knew better
From atop his old setter
And laughed when he saw Harry a fairy.
So glad you enjoyed these, too. They bring a big smile to my face.There once was a fairy called Barney
Who wished to live life as a carni
But Harry was scary
And made him most wary
So he bought a Thai mouse bride named Marnie.
The mice, who were chased to Belize,relaxed and enjoyed the sea breeze
and eyed mouse chiquitas,
drank mouse margaritas,
and snoozed under coconut trees.
Excellent M! Great start to my day of toil and trouble.
Thank you, Guy. Excellent, Ellis! This will be a challenge to try to follow.
The sun set, its glow on the chineof a hulk beached near where we would dine.
Like the glittering sky
was her wordless reply
as she looked at me over her wine.
In Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama (Little, Brown, 1983), X. J. Kennedy writes: “In English the only other fixed form to rival the sonnet and the epigram in favor is the limerick: five anapestic lines usually riming a a b b a. . . . The limerick was made popular by Edward Lear (1812-1888), English painter . . . (Page 570.)
According to Lewis Turco in his The Book of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics (3rd ed.), a limerick has five lines. It rhymes aabba. Lines 1,2, and 5 have an iamb and two anapests, in that order. Lines 3 and 4 have either an iamb and an anapest, in that order, or two anapests. (Page 213.)
An iamb is a metrical foot of two syllables, the first of which is unaccented, the second accented. An anapest is a metrical foot of three syllables, the first two of which are unaccented, the third accented.
By Turco’s definition, the limerick below, which I wrote last summer, is off by a syllable in the third line, which has three anapests, but I think we should allow plenty of leeway for spontaneity, just as in the haiku thread.
A black Irish pirate named Vlad,
weeks becalmed, sat alone and looked sad.
“How can I fix my spud
with a helping of blood
when my crew were the last that I had?”