CANTO XLV

With Usura is nobody blessed,
It buildeth no churches or nest—
As Ezra assures ‘em,
It’s CONTRA NATURAM
(Though maybe he’s slightly obsessed.)

I'm Nobody
or, The Princess of Torn in Taxis


I’m Nobody and—as for you—
I assure you, I cannot Construe
The meaning of Proctor
But I need a Doctor
Unless You know how to Unscrew.

Terese



[This message has been edited by Terese Coe (edited May 14, 2006).]

ULYSSES

A warrier known as Ulysses
went off, disappointing his Mrs.,
... for twenty long years,
... and she, through her tears,
refused all the suitors her kisses.

Or did she? Some gossipers claim
Penelope, being a dame,
... lacking men's armor
... let one or two charm her,
besmirching her husband's good name.

But no, she consumed the years sitting.
And waiting. And knitting and knitting.
... Her suitors unwitting,
... her nightly unknitting
postponed all their suits, as was fitting.

Love Calls Us To The Things Of This World

I wake to the sound of a pulley,
my mind somewhat foggy and wooly,
... but soon love is calling.
... Okay, no more stalling.
I pop out of bed, wakened fully.

The Traveling Onion

My onion is small and holistic
and tragic and functionalistic;
but diced with a blade
and then creamed and souffled,
I fear it's become nihilistic.

Terese

What an excellent and talented set of responses so far.

A few people have strayed off-topic and posted variations on a theme or else ripostes. Fair enough, I think. In some cases (eg Roger's "Trees") the result's a pretty good poem in its own right.

More importantly, I personally believe that limericks should conform strictly to their metrical convention to be successful. One or two people (no names, no pack-drill) have varied the metre and thereby lessened the impact, in my opinion.

Everybody's clearly recognised the importance of hammering home the incongruity, and I think the most successful efforts are those that add other incongruities, thereby further deflating their victims' bubbles. Examples are Roger's opening "Nightingale" ("cheep": brilliant!) and Jan's wonderfully contorted lime/I'm rhyme in his version of Trees.

Also I loved Robin's Beowulf--bloodlust and limericks are so delightfully incongruous--and Henry's Ancient Mariner ("doubtless you've heard it"--poor Coleridge must be turning in his grave).

Anyway, just a few chosen from so many fine efforts, and hoping to see many more.

Best wishes,
David

My favorite so far is Mr. Slater's Light Brigade limerick. The last line - "and did what they did, which was die" - is so flippant it literally made me laugh out loud. I also like the imperfect blundered/hundred rhyme. Merely summarizing a poem in five lines isn't enough to make the result funny. You have to inject your own wit.

Fun exercise. This might make a good theme for an issue of Folly.

My post relates only to [off-color] limericks in general.

Robert Conquest has written some of the funniest limericks - many of them dashed off in correspondence. Zachary Leader's Letters of Kingsley Amis contains hilarious examples, along with equally funny efforts by Amis and Larkin. Many of Conquest's are in dialect:

A Welsh rugby player named Jeffrey
Said 'it's a pity that effry
Time we've a scrum
There's a prick up my bum,
I'm thinking of telling the refree.'

I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Conquest a few months ago, and he shared 2 lines of a limerick he'd never completed. I took the liberty of adding to it, and he was gracious enough to say he liked the result:

There once was a man from New Yawk
Who said 'If my ballocks could tawk,
What a tale they would tell
For I've put them through hell,
By harpooning for crabs with a fawk.'

-- Frank

Among School Children

I walked through a school-room one day
and dreamed about young Maud at play.
But she aged and lost weight, so
I thought about Plato.
Am I dancer or dance? I can't say.



[This message has been edited by Chris Childers (edited May 09, 2008).]

La Belle Dame Sans Merci

La belle dame I kissed in the grot
seemed perfect at first. She was not.
... Our passion was deep
... but she lulled me to sleep
then left me alone on this spot.

The moral, I'm sure you’ll agree:
la belle dame was lacking merci,
... and no one should daily
... be loiterinng palely.
Oh learn from what happened to me!

A Subaltern’s Lovesong

There once was a young attaché,
Shagged his girl in her Hillman, they say,
And became so exact
At this difficult act,
They perform now for Cirque du Soleil.

[Thanks to Jan D. Hodge, I can finally quit bothering the Subaltern].


-- Frank



[This message has been edited by FOsen (edited May 17, 2006).]

An Irish Airman Foresees His Death

There once was an airman for pay
who said, "Win or lose, either way,
... my country, Kiltartan,
... will not play a part in
the outcome -- and I'll die someday.

Sunny Prestatyn

There once was an ad for Prestatyn
So horribly mangled and messed at, and
It read Slag and Bitch,
Signed, young Thomas, Titch,
Defacement was what he won Best-At, in.

-- Frank




[This message has been edited by FOsen (edited May 16, 2006).]

The Second Coming

Turning and turning, the gyre
makes the falcon go higher and higher.
.... Since Christ's Crucifixion
.... the best lack conviction.
What's next, then, if I may inquire?



[This message has been edited by Roger Slater (edited May 16, 2006).]

One Art

My darling, the fine art of losing
isn't difficult, hard or confusing.
.... Easy to master,
.... it was no disaster
to lose you, but it wasn't amusing.





[This message has been edited by Roger Slater (edited May 16, 2006).]

Pit Stop

These woods are as cold as a freezer;
it must be ‘round zero degrees here.
Although promises wait,
and my horse is irate,
I must stop, for you see, I’m a geezer!

Birches

I bend the whole tree down, gain purchase,
then ride the tree up when it lurches,
....then back in reverse.
....A boy could do worse
than being a swinger of birches.

The Woman at the Washington Zoo

I went to the Washington zoo
To eye saris, for something to do,
But the place quite deranged me,
I yelled, Change me! Change me!
So they put me in here, with this gnu.

Paradise Lost

The first time man failed to obey,
Sing, Muse, of the hell man did pay.
.... God said, "Adam, leave,
.... And take that wench, Eve.
Save Eden, the whole world's your way."

Design

I found a fat spider, all white
With wings that it used like a kite
And a neat, fine brocade,
But I’ve drenched it with Raid
And now find, damn it all, I can’t write!

So There!

O Death, you presume to be clever
and triumph o’er all we endeavor.
.....Though you seem to take scores
.....in age, sickness, and wars,
I’ll but sleep, wake, and live on forever.

Abou Ben Adhem
(Leigh Hunt)

Abou Ben Adhem liked people
but feared that this fondness was feeble.
The angel told God
who gave Adhem the nod
and placed him on top of the steeple.

May that multifaith message assuage
the zealots of this present age.
As they skirmish and scrabble
like ignorant rabble
all heaven is put in a rage.

[This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited May 17, 2006).]

Song

Go find me a woman who’s true
and send me the news if you do.
....Were she pretty and good, I
....would meet her — or would I?
By then she’d have cheated on two.


Dover Beach

The ocean tonight sounds so sad,
and the ocean of faith (this is bad)
....has ebbed. What a bother!
....Let’s hide in each other,
for the rest of the world has gone mad.


Inisfree

Will I settle in Inisfree —
grow beans to the buzz of the bee,
....the crickets’ shrill singing,
....the linnets’ loud winging,
and the lake’s endless lapping? Not me!




[This message has been edited by Henry Quince (edited May 18, 2006).]

Gare du Midi


A man with a pitiful face
strode the platform while clutching his case.
No civic reception
delayed the infection
that finished the whole human race.

[This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited May 18, 2006).]

Pied Beauty

God did a good job with the spotty,
in fact He enjoyed it a lot. He
speckled and rippled
and dabbled and stippled
as if He were totally potty.


~~~
Daffodils

I drifted along in a vapour
but started to warble and caper
when acres of yellow
all shimmied like jello,
which fact I commit now to paper.




[This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited May 18, 2006).]

Ode On A Grecian Urn

They live on a vase, no words spoken,
each figure an image, a token.
.... If beauty is truth
.... there's no end to youth
until this damn Grecian Urn's broken.

(Companion to “This is Just to Crow”)

So Much Depends

I ate the white chicken as well.
It wasn't too fresh, from the smell.
....Then I hungrily gazed
....at the rainwater-glazed
red wheelbarrow, sorry to tell.

This be the Verse

Your parents have totally screwed
you up. And without being crude,
avoid procreation
and choose masturbation.
Much better be rude than a prude.

Kids Be the Curse

Since man’s imperfection’s inherent,
my advice is, “Do not be a parent.”
....No ifs and no buts —
....I’m a misery-guts
who was born as an awful deterrent.

Henry,
That's damn good but it's awful of you to leave me exposed with a vulgar poem. Janet

No more vulgar than the original, Janet! Sorry though, for playing off your inspiration. (Pied Beauty is a hoot; I keep rereading it!)


Kids Be the Curse II

Fed up with your life? Pass the buck:
it can’t be your own fault, or luck.
....This verse is adored
....by the young and the bored
and those who applaud the word fuck.



[This message has been edited by Henry Quince (edited May 18, 2006).]

You're forgiven Henry ;)
Hoho...exits chuckling......
Janet


My Papa’s Waltz

When my old dad smelt of whiskey
he used to become very frisky.
I stood on his feet
and we danced to the beat
of his fist on my head, which was risky.

[This message has been edited by Janet Kenny (edited May 19, 2006).]

Omar Khayyam



There once was a Finger that writ.
I said, "Please erase just a Bit!"
.... But the Finger's Utensil
.... was not a mere Pencil,
and Ink can't be smeared by Man's Spit.

*

Life in the Wild would be fine
if I could claim these things as mine:
.... Poetry, Bread,
.... and Thou, love. That said,
I'd settle for one Jug of Wine.


[This message has been edited by Roger Slater (edited May 20, 2006).]

More Omar


My life-path was all in Thy maps,
and beset with predestinate traps.
....Thou wert sure of my falling.
....Thy logic’s apalling —
when I sin why blame me for the lapse?

~~~~~~~

On the chessboard of life every piece
is moved by Fate’s heartless caprice.
....And the pieces are us;
....if I’m crushed by a bus,
that’s how I was meant to decease.



[This message has been edited by Henry Quince (edited May 19, 2006).]

Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

These dead were but unfulfilled yobs,
but still their departure caused sobs.
Here’s one — not unpleasant
perhaps, though a peasant —
who’s up there with God, like the nobs.




[This message has been edited by Henry Quince (edited May 19, 2006).]

Sunday Morning

Is going to church then our duty
when death is the mother of beauty?
no, better by far
lounge in a peignoir
with comforts both sunny and fruity.

No Worst, There Is None

There is no worse thing than this
These pangs bring me to the abyss
....Weeping and sniffs!
....The mind's full of cliffs!
To leap to my death would be bliss

The World Is Too Much With Us

Let's face it, the world is too much
with us and we have lost touch
....with natural law.
....Let's bring back the awe
of pagans and heathens and such.

On first looking into Chapman’s Homer

I’d not read old Homer before.
I felt like that star-finder, Moore,
or those blokes on a peak
who weren’t able to speak,
being gobsmacked by all that they saw.


(This one's so bad it crashed Erato when I tried posting it a few minutes ago. Undeterred, I'm trying again.)

Epic

Sing, Muse, of Akhilleus’ menis,
and how winding Odysseus’ brain is;
tell how Dido got screwed
and Marcellus was rued;
manibus date lilia plenis.



[This message has been edited by Chris Childers (edited May 20, 2006).]