A young Texas heiress named Alice
inherited half of north Dallas.
When she married, her man
was a cowpoke named Stan
whom she chose for the size of his spread near Gonzalez.


Carol

Size Queen

It seems that old Betsy, Regina
Was quite indiscreet with her mynah,
The dirty old bird
Quite loudly averred
That a cuke can just fill a dozen sandwiches.

[This message has been edited by ChrisW (edited February 18, 2002).]

There once was a lady named Dinah
who thought that her bod could be finer.
"Though God knows, I'm blessed
with a marvelous chest,
I'd quite like a tighter upper arm area"

*

When making a husband selection,
be sure there's a mental connection
and please, don't forget
that it's vital to net
a man who'll maintain his interest in you as the years roll by.

[This message has been edited by Clive (edited February 17, 2002).]

That horny Hornblower, Horatio,
to his cabin perversely palatial
was wont to invite
the midshipmite
for a little light evening housekeeping.

(music)

There once was a metrical poet
With a gift, and would gladly bestow it
Upon each blessed girl
Who would give it a whirl,
But first, he insisted she listen to a bit of his light verse.

[This message has been edited by Robert Swagman (edited February 18, 2002).]

A man's tongue may happily sing us
Songs of what fortune can bring us,
But women prefer
Tongues that confer
Non-verbal pleasure by remaining silent.

A gal from the Cumberland Gap
let all the guys sit on her Chippendale sofa,
. . . and with uncommon zest
. . . they would fondle her Queen Anne bureau,
and a few of them got the standing ovation.

Jan

An oversexed tourist from Venus
declared just as soon as she'd seen us
nakedly flaunting
our flesh, "My how daunting!
How can men do it with only one partner?"

Intending no theft and no malice
A eunuch broke into the palace.
"It's got to be here,"
He said. "I'm quite clear
That this is the last place I took out my wallet."

[This message has been edited by Roger Slater (edited February 19, 2002).]

Texas Honeymoon

A cowboy down on his luck
eloped with his bride in a truck.
They drove all that night
in the Texas moonlight
then crawled in the back to sleep.

sam

A man who was down on his luck
Said, "My whole existence is stuck.
I wish I were rich
Since life's such a bitch
Without good food and someone to cook it."

PS--Sam, we cross-posted. I didn't see your "down on his luck" when I was dashing off my own and posting it.

[This message has been edited by Roger Slater (edited February 19, 2002).]

LIMEROID FROM LEAR

Edgar told Gloucester (I quote him),
"Ripeness is all" as they smote him.
Edgar, in fact,
Survived the last Act,
One of the few men in the play to escape with his life.

A woman I dated forgot
That I like it cold more than hot.
She heated the bun
And ruined all the fun
I'd otherwise get from eating her sandwich.


*


If she owes what creditors say she owes
Those lopsided financial ratios
May drive her to ruin
Unless someone soon
Offers her cash for overtime.




[This message has been edited by Roger Slater (edited February 19, 2002).]

My lover's a dolt and a stoner;
For vaseline, he uses toner;
His physical shape
Is that of an ape,
But oh! what a heavenly left elbow!

It seems that the masculine critter is
As likely to chomp on some litter as
Please a poor lass
By eating her flan
Or putting his tongue to her lemon sorbet.

There once was a blonde named Melinda
Who scheduled her daily agenda
With time for a break
To finger the ache
That throbbed in her juicy and warm hacienda.

A dough made of hog feed is swill-dough
And porcupine bread's made of quill-dough.
They say it's a sin
When weeds are mixed in,
But dough made with dill weed's quite popular with women.


The Trojan Women

We marry and husbands betray us,
But there's little for which men'll pay us--
Except for our virtue
(And how can that hurt you?)
Either way we all know Agamemnon's brother.



[This message has been edited by ChrisW (edited February 19, 2002).]

Our boss, when he wants to exploit us
And not simply taunt or annoy us,
Doubles our duties
And calls us his "cuties"
And forces us to have clean desks.

An artful and erotic hussy
For her pleasure, was never too fussy
To find solo joys
With electronic toys,
Which she repeatedly put in her nightstand.

A mason who built sturdy walls,
as a hobby collected rag dolls.
He would slowly undress them
and gently caress them
while simultaneously stroking his kitty-cat.

An old girl whose special affinity
was rhyme with excess alkalinity
was amazed to be shown
a whole new lexicon;
It was almost like losing her marbles.

CT

A female acquaintance of Hobbes
Says "Yes, he was nasty," through sobs,
"And sad to report
Too British and short--
But I loved how he twisted my words.

Three limericks

Stinky pits to the shower must go
Before filth and fungus do grow
Stomach is churning
Eyes have been burning
When the wind by this way does blow


I never have time to go pee
Now don't you feel sorry for me?
I often get stuck
without any luck
The toilet paper's no place I can see.


Why do dogs hump your leg with joy
Like you are some kinky sex toy
A boot to the butt
Will shape up the mutt
Unless thats the kind of thing you enjoy.

Well, since M posted some limericks, not limeroids, I'll drink from the fingerbowl as well and make her feel at home with these:

HISTORY

If only the doctor, Hippocrates,
Had been there to help out when Socrates
..... Drank hemlock he might
..... Have lived through the night
Though his enemies gathered to mock and tease.


CASEY'S RETURN

With arms that still reach for the walls
I swing at a pitch, but it falls
..... Away from my bat
..... And then, just like that,
The count is three strikes and no balls.

THE FIRST POET

It's fun to enjoy a monopoly.
It lets you kick back and write sloppily.
..... But when others can do it
..... Better than you it's
Time to denounce oligopoly.

DIRTY LIMERICK

The shah bought no bras for his harem
Since he wouldn't let his wives wear ‘em.
..... "Each night I must pick
..... Just one, and the trick
Is keeping them bare to compare ‘em."

[This message has been edited by Roger Slater (edited February 20, 2002).]

Make that a "Shah", Roger? Kings don't have harems.

jejeje

(music)

Thanks, Bear. I guess I don't want to be a king after all. "Shah" has a nicer assonance with "bras" anyway.

*DUR* Okay now I SEE the game!!! Thanks Roger for drinking with me. "Cheers!"

There once was an eager young poet
Who thought she'd take a go at it
New to the place
Fell on her face
But what a nice view of the ceiling.

Closer? I didn't see any "rules"

Mel,

The "rules", such as they are, appended to the birth of the Limeroid in another thread.

Basically, all we're doing is writing a dirty limerick, where the last word is the dirty word, then replacing it with a total non-sequitur, the more ridiculous the better. So, in my limeroid:

That horny Hornblower, Horatio,
to his cabin perversely palatial
was wont to invite
the midshipmite
for a little light evening housekeeping.

the missing rhyme word would be (I blush to say it aloud) "fellatio".

Some folks are spinning off and doing limeroids that aren't dirty at all, but why bother? The fun of the thing is to sneak something obscene past the censor, if ya know what I mean?

Hope this helps.

(music)

Ha haa HA ha ha ha HA! That puts an entirely new light on this subject. *double dur* on me I didn't even see it!!!
ANOTHER try.

When I was young I had me a duck
Who in a tarpit fell and got stuck
I pulled on his tail
he let out a wail
Smacked me on the head and said you dumb cucumber.


Okay, yeah it's pretty simplistic...but at least I've figured out the game. Unless there was another rule I don't know about.

Ha haa HA ha ha ha HA! That puts an entirely new light on this subject. *double dur* on me I didn't even see it!!!
ANOTHER try.

When I was young I had me a duck
Who in a tarpit fell and got stuck
I pulled on his tail
he let out a wail
Smacked me on the head and said you dumb cucumber.


Okay, yeah it's pretty simplistic...but at least it's kinda bad.
I think I'm in over my head here!!!

Gee, since we now have "permission" to not be filthy, how about:

A ladies' man prone to excesses
would cover the girls with caresses,
. .and when they were hot
. .he would likely as not
lie down and look up their names in the phone book.

Well, maybe sometimes a light tap can be as effective as a sledge hammer? or a smile as pleasing as a guffaw?

Maybe even in limericks there is still a tiny corner reserved for subtlety?

Maybe "adult" doesn't have to mean "crude"?

Maybe "sneaking something obscene past the censor" isn't the only fun in town?

Maybe the mellifluous is its own excuse for being?

But yes, dirty can be fun, too . . .

Jan http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/ubbhtml/smile.gif

Though Jan has convinced me that limericks and limeroids do not have to be dirty, I wrote these and posted them elsewhere on Erato before Jan helped me see the light.


TO A WRITER OF LIMERICKS

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.

I see that Gazebo has a big 'limeroid' thread -- and that no one seems to recall that *I* was the coiner of 'limeroid' (as far as I know) -- it might be my one claim to fame, so I'm going to cling to it! Of course, things are complicated by the fact that I don't exist over on Gazebo. (See my scurrilous limerick thread on Metrical I.

It seems a bit silly to trouble you
Said trivial Christopher W
But rather than simmer I'd
Claim the word 'limeroid'
Thank goodness I don't have to rhyme here!

Hey, Jan:

It wasn't my contention that a limerick has to be dirty. Some say it does, but I'm not one of those.

My point is, the amusing thing about a limeroid, its raison d'etre, if you will, is that it takes the dirty part and obscures it, makes the reader extract it for him or herself.

For me, the limeroid that is not obscuring a "dirty" word is essentially a non-sequitur. Kind of like writing a 13 line poem and claiming it's a sonnet. Of course, there are certainly no formal rules for a limeroid, anyone can do whatever they like and call it one, I am just stating a personal opinion here.

(music)

For what it's worth, I checked a half dozen or so folks I believe are limerick experts and, though all had written lims of this type, none knew what the name for such a construction might be.

Chris, I'll go over to Gaz and make sure you get your copyright on that name, which may make you famous some day.

I think the fun thing about a Limeroid is the surprise ending, whether the implied word is dirty or not. The reader has to be able to anticipate the unspoken word, and that's somehow easier to do with dirty words. http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/ubbhtml/smile.gif

Limericks themselves often tend toward the naughty, and some people think that's all they're good for, but I've heard a lot of good ones that weren't naughty. I think they must be funny and metrically regular, though.

Carol

Oh well, Carol, it really is silly to care, but one doesn't like to be so easily forgotten! And of course, on Gaz, nobody'll know me, so what difference does it make?

Point taken. I'll amend my response by changing "limerick" to "limeroid":

Maybe even in limeroids there can be a small corner where one can try for cleverness sans vulgarity? As Carol argues, the point is still to have the reader anticipate the [absent] rhyme word as the ending takes an unexpected turn.

I am hardly a prude, and agree that sex is (and probably should be) the staple of light verse and humor, but I am unconvinced that blatant vulgarity for its own sake is inherently either witty or funny.

On a related topic: I used to do the following exercise in intro to lit classes to get students comfortable with the "mysteries" of meter. It has the advantages of not having to rewrite Yeats or Keats or whoever, and giving them a subject they can be comfortable with and have fun with.

Part A: Fill in the blank with "a," "the," or a number from two to nine.

When Dangerous Daniel McGrew
went berserk in the Sioux City zoo,
. . .he goosed several geese
. . .and the caretaker's niece,
and impregnated ____ kangaroo.

P.S.: "kangaroo" is a recognized [OED] plural form; cf. sheep, etc.

Part B: (the class to do in discussion in 10 minutes or so)

Rewrite the limerick into iambic meter, given this as the first line:

When Dandy Dan McGrew . . .

Every class came up with something at least passable, and learned quite a few things in the process. As discussion refined word choices and sound patterns, most classes worked toward something like:

When Dandy Dan McGrew
went nuts* in Boston's zoo,
. .he goosed the geese
. .and the owner's** niece,
and screwed*** the kangaroo.

*one student came up with the perfect word for "nuts": "ape"! The class instantly recognized its superiority. "Boston's zoo" can then become "Capetown Zoo."

**whatever word is suggested first for here, someone always soon comes up with "keeper's," obviously better for assonance.

***for moralistic types, "kissed" works nicely here. Sometimes a daring student offers "fucked," but the word is far too strong (and less assonant) for context, and kills the joke, which saves me the trouble of having to appear "moralistic."

But--and this is where this whole tangent was headed--one student many years ago offered:

When Dandy Dan McGrew
tried making breakfast for two,
. .he burned the bread,
. .went back to bed,
and said, "Oh heck, let's go out for breakfast."

An iambic limeroid? (So the second line doesn't scan . . . )

Sorry for carrying on so.

Jan

jejeje

That's a great story, Jan!

(music)