Limerist Fit, Non Nascitur

"Oh, How shall I write my first lim?
I would learn to write verses with vim;
You told me one time,
'To have wit is sublime.'
Won't you, Sir, give me one paradigm?"

The graybeard looked up and was glad
When he heard the bold words from the lad,
'True, humdrum he's not,
Nor dawdles a lot;
I suppose I could teach him a tad.'

"You would learn of the verse that's melodic,
Before you've had schooling methodic?
I can see you're no fool,
There is only one rule:
You must first learn to be a quixotic.

"A limerick's best writ from the back,
It's there you will put your wise crack;
Make *this* line the first
That you'll write in your thirst
To ensure you are on the right track.

"It will always consist of three feet,
With a 'Night before Christmas'-like beat;
You can think of this verse
If your meter sounds worse
Than the caterwaul calls from the street.

"Now the last you have got in the bag,
Use the first four to trigger the gag:
One & two rhyme with five,
Three & four both will strive
To echo each other like tag.

"Recalling the feet of the final ..."
He mused, while massaging his rhinal,
"Though line three and line four
Have dimeter score,
The rest are decidedly trinal."

"So if speaking of pies made of mutton,
We could say they are crafted from cuttin'
The fleecy flock's dreams
To silence their screams
And feed them to Lecter, the Glutton?"

"Why, yes," said the elderly gent,
"That example is just what I meant."

Your limericks, fine to inspect,
though metrical have one defect:
a limerick must
involve sex and lust.
The clean ones most readers reject.

You just cannot buck this tradition,
regardless how noble your mission.
No, you can't duck it.
That girl from Nantucket
is a limerick's true precondition.

Well, if you insist,

Syllepsis
=========

Joe Zeugma could not get a date,
Which left him a piteous state,
But with help from his name
He finally came
Into money, her bedroom and Kate.

Joe climbed off and grinned ear to ear.
"Did I make the earth move for you, dear?"
Kate lay back and sighed
"Well, my darling, you tried
but your earth-mover's too small, I fear"

A thread for me? How very kind!
It's not a thing I'm used to.
All nonce you say, and couplets rhymed
It's a thing I can't refuse you...


Young Thomas the gay young New Yorker,
was known as a witty old talker
of Steins out of Kleins
and for pinching behinds
and for knowing a 'stalk' from a 'stalker'.

http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/ubbhtml/biggrin.gif

Crude variations on a theme by Clive

That women don’t care about size
Is something poor Joseph denies:
He once came a cropper
When Kate said his “whopper”
Was one of those little white lies.


A fellow beside the Dordogne
Asked a woman he’d met, “could I bogne?
She sized up his basket
And decided to ask it:
“Would you wear an extension I’d logne?”

Negative - Eggative
Josephine Bonaparte
Shunned when Napoleon
Wanted a son,

Faulted not only his
Submicroscopical
Member but also how
Quick he was done.

Josephine Bonaparte
though she knew better men
should have known better than
speaking her heart.

Emperors have feelings, too,
don't like their balls impugned.
Far worse than Waterloo
was that cheap tart.

Though estoterical,
these are hysterical.

Hugh, your little cutie
does doubly-troubly duty.

Gibbity-Gabbity
Nigel the versemeister,
Given a thread of
his own, sent it back:

“Let’s reconsider,”
he said, “the conditions
that, under Ms Taylor,
a rhyme can expect.”

(music)