The lost art of the limerick

[pensivepoet]

Her name she said was louise
and her only aim was to please
i gave her a nickel
to swallow my pickle
In a flash she was down on her knees

 

[Trixareforkids]

A nickel? Oh how cheap
I'd make you go quite deep
Into your pocket
For a rocket
That won't just put me to sleep

oh my, might have made myself gag a little

 

[pensivepoet]

She once had a puppy named wiley
her training was never done shyly
she swatted his ass
when he failed at his task
doing tricks just a little too dryly

 

[UnderYourSpell]

There was a young man from Gwent
Whose prick was exceedingly bent
To save himself trouble
He put it in double
And instead of coming he went.
...............................
'Twas on the good ship Venus
By god you should have seen us
The figure head
Was a maid in bed
Sucking the Captain's penis.

 

[UnderYourSpell]

Crocodile by the name of Nora
Had a magnificent aura
Attracted a skunk
They both did a bunk
Producing some very odd fauna.

 

[Ashesh9]

There was a Lion called John
Who loooved readin' Erotic porn
He mated with a Rhino
They produced a baby Dino
& called him Jurassic Don !?!

 

[twelveoone]

4/5

There was a 'shole from Literotica
suffered from logorrhexotica
Oh how it burned
whenever he turned
bowlfuls of poems shitalotica

Labels: Limerick, new word coinage, social criticism, anon bait, batshit

 

[UnderYourSpell]

~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Ashesh9]

there was this Ageless Wonder
tryin' harrd to write poetry 'e used to flounder
so he passed Comment
in New Poems Segment
this numerical Timeless Bounder .....????!!!!

 

[RustyIron]

Old Mother Hubbard
went to the cupboard
to get poor rover a bone
when she bent over
rover drove her
he had a bone
of his own.

 

[oggbashan]

Something I wrote for foreign friends some years ago...

The Limerick

The following is extracted (and adapted) from "The
Lure of the Limerick" by W S Baring-Gould.

1.
The limerick's an art form complex
Whose contents run chiefly to sex;
It's famous for virgins
And masculine urgin's
And vulgar erotic effects.

2.
The limerick packs laughs anatomical
Into space that's quite economical.
But the good ones I've seen
So seldom are clean
And the clean ones so seldom are comical.

3.
The limerick is furtive and mean;
You must keep it in close quarantine,
Or it sneaks to the slums
And promptly becomes
Disorderly, drunk and obscene.

Those three examples should give you an idea of
the form of a limerick. The rhyme scheme is
AABBA; lines 3 and 4 should be shorter, and line 5
although rhyming with lines 1 and 2 either is an
unusual rhyme or has a unexpected twist. The A
rhymes in limerick 3 are brilliantly conceived.
They rhyme perfectly but look as if they wouldn't.

The rhythm should also be exact, but isn't always.
There should be nine "beats" in lines 1,2 and 5;
six beats in lines 3 and 4; and the third, sixth
and ninth "beats" in lines 1,2 and 5 are accented:
ditty-DUM, ditty-DUM, ditty-DUM.

It is called anapestic rhythm - two short
syllables and a long.

The best limericks should satisfy by their
unexpected solutions to rhyming problems and they
should delight us with a surprise ending.

This is the end of the quotation from Mr
Baring-Gould.

+++

The limericks that follow come from his book, from
"Odes and Ends" selected by Cyril Fletcher, "There
was a Young Lady ..." by Hugh De Witt, and
"Illuminated Limericks" collected by Roger Kilroy.
Both the last two authors' names are likely to be
pseudonyms.

Here are some clean ones from "Odes and Ends" all
written by "Anon" (anonymous):

4.
There was an old man of Peru,
Who dreamt he was eating his shoe.
He woke in the night
In a terrible fright,
And found it was perfectly true.

5.
There was an old man who said,"Do
Tell me how I should add two and two?
I think more and more
That it makes about four -
But I fear it is almost too few."

6.
There was an old woman of Clewer
Who was riding a bike and it threw her,
A butcher came by,
And said "Missus, don't cry,"
And he fastened her on with a skewer.

7.
There was a small maiden named Maggie,
Whose dog was enormous and shaggy;
The front end of him
Looked vicious and grim -
But the tail end was friendly and waggy!

Some ruder ones from "There was a Young Lady ..."

8.
There was a young lady of Ongar,
Who got into bed with a conger.
When asked how it felt,
She replied: "Though it smelt,
It was just like a man, only longer."

9.
An hoary old monk of North China
Once said: "There is nothing diviner
Than to sit in one's cell
And let one's mind dwell
On the charms of a virgin vagina."

10.
There was a young lady named Myrtle,
Who was both attractive and fertil:
She would say: Please stay still,
Till I've swallowed my Pill!"
Such a sensible lady was Myrtle.

11.
An anaemic young lady from Stoke,
Who in favour of chastity spoke,
By her doctor was told:
"If I may make so bold,
What you need is a jolly good poke."

12.
A young fancy boy of Khartoum
Took a Lesbian up to his room
But they argued all night
As to who had the right
To do what, with which, and to whom.

13.
Then up spoke a Prince of Siam:
"For women I don't give a damn.
They haven't the grip,
Nor the velvety tip,
Nor the scope of the assholes of man."

14.
Then up spoke the King of Siam:
"For women I don't give a damn;
But a fat-bottomed boy
Is my pride and my joy -
They call me a bugger: I AM!"

15.
There was a young fellow called Bliss,
Whose sex life was sadly amiss:
For even with Venus
His recalcitrant penis
Could never do better than
t
h
i
s
.

6.
Then up spake the Bey of Algiers,
To his harem he said: "My dears,
You may think it odd o'me,
But I've given up sodomy -
Tonight there'll be fucking! - (loud cheers).

17.
There was a young man of Cape Horn,
Who wished he had never been born:
And he would not have been
If his father had seen
That the end of the sheath was torn.

18.
There was a young student of St. John's,
Who wanted to bugger the swans.
Conscientious hall porter:
"Pray, take my daughter!
The swans are reserved for the dons."

19.
There was a young girl from Kilkenny,
Whose usual charge was a penny.
But for half that sum
Her round rosy bum
Was a source of amusement to many.

20.
There was a young girl of Sophia,
Who succumbed to her lover's desire.
She said: "It's a sin'
But now that it's in -
Please shove it up higher and higher."

CHALLENGE - Write your own limerick with the first
rhymes "Dorset" and "Corset". Here is one that
exists:

There was a young lady from Dorset,
Who let her boss see her new corset.
He wrote there a cheque,
As she lay on her back,
Then took down his pants to endorse it.

The BB rhymes are not good.

Here's a two from me:

There was a young lady from Dorset
Who covetted her grandmama's corset.
Though she tried and tried
She couldn't get inside,
No matter how hard she'd force it.

There was a young lady from Dorset,
A new mum, who laced up her corset
She strained and strained -
Then her clothing was stained
By her tits spraying milk like a faucet.

And some different ones (also Og originals)

A bride while wearing her cage
Incited her husband to rage
Why, what was the matter?
He couldn't get at her
And the cage was concealing her page.

A young lady wearing her stays
May attract much fulsome praise
But her amorous swains
Find stays cause pains
For wooing can't stand the delays

Enough for now - You should have the idea.

Later, after they replied:

However:

Comments on the limericks I wrote:

A bride while wearing her cage
Incited her husband to rage
Why, what was the matter?
He couldn't get at her
And the cage was concealing her page.

"Page" is a young male attendant. He would carry
her train or reticule or whatever. He would stand
by her chair ready to run errands for her. If he
was an adult person of restricted height (a dwarf)
he could do *other* things for her (particularly
inside her cage!) "page" is also a page of a book
but not in this context. But it could be .. if she
was reading an *interesting* book she didn't want
her husband to see or a page from a love letter.
The last line of a limerick often has a double
meaning. In English we use the French expression
"double-entendre" - to hear twice. So "page" could
be a small male person or a page from a book or a
letter.

*****

A young lady wearing her stays
May attract much fulsome praise
But her amorous swains
Find stays cause pains
For wooing can't stand the delays

Oh dear! I got in a mess with this one, trying to
amend it in a hurry.

The basic idea was a rhyme pattern of "stays,
praise, delays" and "swains, pains" .

But - then the idea was that the stays (another
word for a corset but stays is always plural),
while providing her with an attractively small
waist also annoyed her suitors/lovers "the swains"
because of the delay in getting her corset off.

"taking pains" means to take care about doing
something; to do it thoroughly and in a
workmanlike manner. So the double-entendre was on
"pains". The swains had to take pains (to undo the
corset carefully) and were also caused pain (by
the delay in getting at the girl) and presumably
they would have a pained expression because of the
frustration of fighting the corset to get at the
girl.

BUT - my first, second and third drafts didn't
work properly, so I tried to change it again and
ended up with a mess. The version above doesn't
make as much sense as any of the drafts.

So I'll have to change the rhyme pattern:

A young lady wearing her stays
May attract many loving plays
But her amorous swain
Finds unlacing a pain
And frowning his temper betrays

That's still not good but better than the mess I
made before.

A young lady well-wrapped in her corset
Was abducted while travelling in Dorset
A gag filled her lips
He uncovered her hips
And her virginity, well - she's lorst it.

And one for an obscure fetish - Unbirth:

A young lady eloped from her room
On the ladder waited her groom.
As she slipped on a rung
Her skirt over him swung,
So she pulled him right into her womb.

 

[Angeline]

Ogg, what a wonderful lesson and I love how you showed the development of your limerick at the end. Of course I've never been to Dorset so that limerick in my mind is set in Thomas Hardy's world of Tess and Jude and the Mayor of Casterbridge.

The General Board ladies of Lit
Are welcomed with "Show us your tits,"
But here on the Pobo
We don't do a show, no
We'd rather write poems about it.



Well, I tried. And I don't care that line 2 is a near rhyme!

 

[greenmountaineer]

What, no young girl from Nantucket?

Well then.....

Never mind.

 

[oggbashan]

What, no young girl from Nantucket?

Well then.....

Never mind.

As a retired secondhand bookdealer I still have a number of limerick books but I prefer to write my own originals.

The limerick about Nantucket is very well known and appears in almost all limerick collections.

 

[oggbashan]

There is a poet called Green Mountaineer
I don’t know whether or how he likes beer
But as a Lit poet he’s ace
Treats my poor efforts with grace:
His support of poets merits a cheer.

 

[greenmountaineer]

There is a poet called Green Mountaineer
I don’t know whether or how he likes beer
But as a Lit poet he’s ace
Treats my poor efforts with grace:
His support of poets merits a cheer.

Thanks, ogg; gave me a chuckle, just what I needed.

 

[butters]

oh cripes, i'd forgotten i'd written those ones at the start

 

[Ashesh9]

a compassionate Poet called GM
he writes 'em just as he sees 'em,
as a friend , he's a dear
even quite far: he's near
in my dictionary, he's a real gem!!!

 

[greenmountaineer]

a compassionate Poet called GM
he writes 'em just as he sees 'em,
as a friend , he's a dear
even quite far: he's near
in my dictionary, he's a real gem!!!

What a nice thing to write. Thanks, Ash.

 

[butters]

as mountaineers go, he's not so
green as the 'all tell and show'
poet members that post
he is one of the most
adept and adroit that i know!

 

[rae121452]

here's the limerick i composed for my neighbor:

i once had a neighbor named jerry
who sported with men large and hairy
when the doorbell would ring
to the closet he'd spring
and come out dressed as his sister mary.


for some reason, he was offended..............................

 

[Piscator]

A middling French poet called Dulot
collected end rhymes which he got
from bawdy girls in a brothel
yet though the rhymes were awful
it wasn’t the worst thing that he caught

 

[butters]

there was an old woman from Gwent
whose cat had a tail that was bent
so she built a cat-flap
with an L-shaped adapt
that wonderful woman from Gwent

 

[butters]

the mockingbirds war in the trees
they dive here and there as they please
the dog's quite confounded
his concerns unfounded
those damnable birds on a tease

 

[butters]

try touching your toes he suggested
in my back's good health he's invested
now wiggle that butt
don't trip on the mutt
and then we'd best get my eyes tested