[Steve Bradbury]

I love a good limerick because of the quirky sense that many ostensibly nonsensical limericks make. I don't know what to call this poetic genre but I was striving for a similar effect.

Roses are red
Violets are blue
Love you to pieces
p.s., fuck you

[This message has been edited by Steve Bradbury (edited May 04, 2008).]

[Maryann Corbett]

Steve, I've been doing badly this week at identifying forms, but this one doesn't appear to be a limerick. Limerick-ness would require

a FIRST line with THREE points of STRESS
and a SEcond withOUT any LESS (ooh! pardon the bad grammar)
and a THIRD with just TWO
while, conTRAStingly, YOU
have a FOUR-lines-of-DImeter MESS

No, just kidding; not a mess, but not a limerick.

Is it a poem? It takes lines that every child knows, adds a commonplace/cliché and then does an about-face to surprise us with a shock-word ending that's yet another commonplace. I don't give it many points for originality.

The point I do see in it is that when we mouth polite commonplaces, so often the real feeling that we keep hidden is that last mean line. The point is valuable.

I'd like to see that point made with creative language rather than with a collection of commonplaces.

About the F-word: in this case it seems to have a function in the poem, so I'm not going to yell, but others may not be so forgiving.

I hope this isn't so negative as to be discouraging. I think you should give it another, more inventive try.

[Stephen Scaer]

Maryann is being kind. I would eliminate this before someone uses it to blackmail you.

[John Whitworth]

Shall we do limericks then? Non filthy ones. I just wrote these to explain to an American what a toff (Boris Johnson) was. I have to say that Boris is not like that. am maybe like that, but alas I am not a toff. I am an oik. The Guardian is a British left wing newspaper.

Toffs and Oiks

A toff is an upper-class feller
With plenty of booze in his cellar
Who, finding each peasant
Unwashed and unpleasant,
Impales him upon his umbrella.

An oik is a son of the soil,
Best suited to indigent toil,
An innocent creature,
Bone-idle by nature,
That Socialists manage to spoil.

But the toffs and the oiks both combine
In despising the Guardian whine,
Preferring the cheer
Of tobacco and beer
To the sandals-and-celery line.

[Roy Hamilton]

Roses are red
Violets are blue
Sounds just like my wife
Especially, "Fuck You!"

Sorry Hon.

[Michael Cantor]

Why don't you start a new thread called "Stupid Poems I Wrote in Two Minutes".

This reads like it was written by a ten year old. And if you think that's a limerick, you shouldn't be posting here.

Aside from that, it's terrific.

[Janet Kenny]

The Guardian writers are chic.
Their neurons are sparky and quick.
They're fabulous snobs
who have fabulous jobs
but their typos seem lazy and thick.

They once were a Manchester crowd
but the move up to London allowed
more cut and more thrust
and more topical lust
and a readership better endowed.

The Grordian always supports
the avong grord Freudian thoughts.
My heart always swells
when the Grordian misspells
all the pueple in crourt it reports.

[Janet Kenny]

Steve, Stephen's right. Edit it quick before some swine moves in and publishes it.
Janet

[Roy Hamilton]

Umm, this is "Drills and Amusements" and really should be there.

[Steve Bradbury]

Sorry for the confusion. I knew it wasn't a limerick but I didn't know what to call this genre but wanted to make it clear that I was striving for something that had the daffy sense that many good limericks convey. It looks like I did the opposite. I'll revise the introductory sentence to make it clearer. Feel free to move it to drills and amusements.