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Limerick Showcase
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A chance for players to showcase whole limericks for amusement & edification. Standard winning move for the purposes of euthanasia.
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In the winter we must feed the birds
They are hungry and come in great herds
They love sunflower seeds
It fills most of their needs
And the pay you with white little turds

And they pay you with white little turds.
Dirty old Dan had escaped
From a prison, rectangular-shaped.
That silly buffoon
Had dug out with a spoon,
When the jail bars were merely scotch-taped!

Asimov's entire robot stories:
“Protect humans, obey, and survive”
I was taught, but from this I derive
The collective is all
And humanity’s call
Overrides my original drive.

I found that one in an old file I just came across. Here's a few more:

The Foundation trilogy

Foundation

The Empire is going to pot
Psychohistory’s all that we’ve got
To lessen the pain
And let good rise again
Just ten centuries Seldon allot.

Foundation and Empire

The mutant is breaking the Plan
Seldon couldn’t foresee just one man
The Second Foundation
Will be their salvation
But it has to stay hid if it can.

Second Foundation

They’ve discovered the Second Foundation
It gives the First great consternation
They spring a fine trap
And think it’s a wrap
To the Second Foundation’s elation.

One I composed while killing 20 minutes in a pub in Theale (pronounced "teel") last night

There was a young lady of Theale
Whose embonpoint verged on surreal
And on Saturday night
There's a rumour she might
Let me and my mates cop a feel.


[Phil] I had to lookup embonpoint . The illustrative use that Google returns is wonderful: "the lady of a certain age and uncertain embonpoint wore strapless black lace kept up by sheer determination".
[Raak] Splendid!
This one was sent to me from an old friend so I don't know the origin:
On the breasts of a barmaid from Sale
Were tattooed all the prices of ale
And on her behind
For the sake of the blind
Was the same information in Braille.

This is his source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ei68YJe-nA0
[Marc] That one dates from before WWII.

On an isle far away one man sits
"Tell us why" his hosts cry; and he spits
"Do the worst that you can
I'll remain a free man!"
Two years later they've lost, and he splits.


Thx Stevie. Then maybe this one is from before WWI??
There was a young man from Cape Horn
who wished he had never been born
And he shouldn't have been
if his father had seen
that the top of the rubber was torn.

[Stevie] Thanks for making me check. I had no idea Braille was so old. You find out the strangest things through the world of Limericks
Opus 617

In the belly's a drum made of steel
Spinning a million revs by the feel
We'll fly low, and he'll drop
With a hippety-hop
And a bang to make Miss Möhne reel


We shall go right on to the end.
Our island we'll ever defend -
On the beach; in the street;
In the air we'll defeat
The Nazis and never surrend
-er
To be read in your best Chief Inspector Clouseau voice

The fortification outside
Is constructed thick, long and wide
But all this, my dear general
May be rendered ephemeral
If the Germans just go round the side


Ode to an MCer

The roof has just let out a groan
There's grim silence when I lift the phone
Wind's howlin' it's snowin'
Rain gauge's overflowin'
TV's dark. I'll get out my trombone


Another one from my old friend:
An invalid from Albuquerque
Was suddenly feeling quite perky
So he screwed both his maids
And his two nursing aides
And the woman who made his beef jerky.


O Captain! Our fearful trip's done,
Racks weather'd, and prize we sought won.
The grim vessel draws near.
Bells ring, people cheer,
But my captain, your blood does not run.

O Captain! Rise up, hear the bell.
See the flag, hear the bugle as well.
Ribbon'd wreaths line the shore;
'Tis you they call for,
As I cradle you, dead as you fell.

My captain is mute; pale and chill.
He feels nothing; no pulse, no will.
Exult, ring a bell!
As I tread where he fell,
My Captain, cold and dead still.

Phil: I stand up in attention, chin up, chest out, shoulders back, stomach in, in admiration of your submission! My friend keep mailing me, no source stated:
There was a young lady at sea
Who complained that it hurts when she’d pee
"I see," said the mate,
"That accounts for the state
of the captain, the purser, and me."

Thanks, Marc. Here's one from Byron, which I didn't know till today (not being a big fan of poetry):

No more roving so late into night,
Though our hearts still love and the moon's bright.
For the soul wears the breast,
Love itself must have rest.
We shall not love or rove by moonlight.


[Phil] By gad, sir you are impressive! Well played, sir, well played!
Thanks, Stevie. Verse three of "O Captain! My Captain!" was a bitch, but well worth the half hour it took to make it work.

No forests or mountains for me
I look on such things with great glee
Every wave on a shore
sends me longing for more
I was born by the side of the sea…

Just stopped by to give Ol' Blunder a shout. Just made up this one on the spot. ciao
There once was a lady named Dot
Who’d nothing to do with the DOT
But there’s some do claim
The two were the same;
For she’d this space men parked in a lot.

This one I wrote a long time ago at another Limerick site and it came from the bottom of my heart:
Do not leave us now little Bear,
We’re missing your good lines out there,
The quality is low,
Production rate slow,
Please come back little Pooh hear our prayer!
and it is still valid to a great extent...
There Once Was a Bridge in Westminster

The Earth can show nothing more fair;
Beauty's garment this City does wear.
Temples, ships and domes lie
Clear to fields, to the sky,
All glitt'ring and bright in pure air.

And ne'er did the sun fairer steep,
Nor did I such a calm feel so deep!
As the river's sweet will
Glides it past that heart, still.
Dear God! Houses too seem asleep.


Dunno why Wordsworth felt the need to use an extra four lines, myself!
Nice lines above - have incited me to give it my best effort

The country life, the country life
‘tis to be free of the city’s strife
Floods, drought, and frost
Are loves labor lost
And you’ll wake up sore as a banker’s wife

When a field is lying fallow
There is nothing more I hallow
As sowing the furrow
To rise up tomorrow
Waist deep in wheat tall and yellow

When the silk is nee on the corn
And the ear on cob is new born
The stalk is a castle
Enamored in tassel
- Come harvest my kingdom is shorn

I get my grapes straight off the vine
As do I berries and fruit for my wine
Though sugar were free
- my lil honey bee -
You’d still get all the business of mine

Today I’ve tickets to a play
But I haven’t that far to stray
That actor in the pine
That squirrel, he is mine
God has lent him to me for the day

Some folks: they long for, and go to sea
Beguiled by whales on the open lea
But the far cry of geese
‘tis that gives me no peace
It’s over the next mountain for me

Excellent!
Half a league, half a league did they ride
With "Forward the Light Brigade!" cried
"Charge for the guns"
Obeyed six hundred sons
Who rode into that valley untried.

"Forward the Light Brigade!" thundered.
No soldier knew someone had blundered
Not their's to ask why
Their's but to do and die;
To the valley of Death rode six hundred.

Cannon to left and to right
And ahead were more cannon of might.
Storm'd with shot and with shell
They rode boldly and well,
Till the jaws of Death were in sight.

They flash'd all their sabres so bare
They flash'd as they turned in the air
There sabring the gunners
As all the world wonders
They charged on their foe without care.

They plunged through the battery smoke,
Through the Cossack and Russian line broke.
All shatter'd and sunder'd
Rode back not six hundred
As the foe reel'd from their sabre-stroke.

With cannon to left and to right
And cannon behind out of sight
Storm'd with shot and with shell
While horse and man fell
The mouth of hell passed in their flight.

The world as a whole truly wonder'd
As out of that valley they thunder'd
The brave Light Brigade,
Can their glory e'er fade?
As we honour the noble six hundred!

[Phil] Tennymerick!
This is from 1958:
Half a league
Half a league
Half a league downward
Into Division IV
Drop Crewe Alexandra.
For IKB

Some say that he was a sage
And his railway was once all the rage
But despite the sweet ride
The tracks were too wide
And he lost the war o'er "Break of Gauge"




A dozen, a gross, and a score
Plus three times the square root of four
Divided by seven
Plus five times eleven
Is nine squared and not a bit more.

[Marc] S'a guddun
My first, second, third are in "slime"
My fourth twice in "lager and lime"
My fifth is in "brandy"
My sixth in "mild shandy"
Sev'nth and eighth in "Cork gin". How sublime!

And now that the end has come near
My friend, let me say this quite clear,
As I face the last curtain,
Of this I am certain,
To my way I'll surely adhere.

Regrets? Not a lot, that's what I say.
On each careful step on the byway,
Avoiding remorse,
I planned each charted course,
And much more than this, did it my way.

There were times, I'm sure that you knew,
That I bit off more than I could chew.
But when there was doubt,
I ate up, spat it out,
Faced it all and stood tall, as I do.

I've loved and I've laughed and I've cried.
And now as the tears subside,
My full share of losing
All seems so amusing.
In all that I did, I take pride.

What is a man; what has he got?
Not himself? Then he surely has naught.
To say things that he feels,
Not repeat one who kneels;
He truly must heed his own thought.

Though now I have travelled each highway
Let me say, and not in a shy way,
That the record will show
That I took every blow.
But more, so much more, did it my way.


My friend sent me a mail:
I also play baritone sax
It helps me unwind and relax
It's great for the lung
My fingers and tongue
And the noise clears the ears of all wax...

A variation of an old bawdy poem:

Over the hill came Pistol Pete
Ninety-five lbs. of swinging meat
He met up with a gal
By the name of Big Sal
Who had the Grand Canyon betwixt her feet.

The question remains when this tale is done
Should Pete of stood there or should he of run?
And though it is moot
One cannot dispute
Pete's now married cause he did neither one.

The albatross flew in the sky
I aimed my crossbow and let fly
But the fates were unkind
I went out of my mind
Now I sit here and bore passers-by.

*chuckles*
My benevolence comes at a price
To wit should you leap through the ice
Limit your spree
To less than three
As I will pull you out only twice


A girl of Brazilian extraction
Liked rock stars and double the action
She said with a swagger
She'd had Richards and Jagger
And BOTH had achieved satisfaction.....


When in the course of the times
The government tends to grave crimes
It's the right of us all
To send them to the wall
And get new ones and pay them our dimes.


I'm your God, have no others but me
With my name you mustn't make free
Rest one day, 'spect the 'rents
Don't kill, lust, steal pence
Tell the truth, covet not, and you'll see.

[Raak] Hoorah!
on a lighter note

To the eyes of the ignorant rabble
It looks like a load of pure babble
But my motives are pure
(Though my diction's obscure)
Either that, or I'm cheating at Scrabble


The mind-bending maths are all done
The race was a killer, it's won
All this mental corrosion
Suggests that implosion
Will best the Uranium Gun.


While singing an opera by Strauss
(in fact, it was Die Fledermaus)
I delighted the hordes
While treading the boards
And completely brought down the whole house.


standard singer's modesty....
The choirmaster asked for staccato.
The chorister sang it legato.
And his final top C,
Sounded more like a B -
There's a chance he might end up castrato

While Pablo was singing some Strauss
(It might have been Die Fledermaus)
I swung the iron ball
Knocked out the front wall
And completely brought down the whole house.

[Phil] Excellent! [Stevie] Calumny!
[Pablo] Thanks :)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

What I'd call a #

Hidden texthash sign
, I've found,
Americans mostly call #
Hidden textpound

Though in C♯
Hidden textsharp
it warps
To look like ##
Hidden textoctothorps
.
And would #
Hidden texthex
in Malaysia astound?

###


Marc, love the math one! That's brilliant!
[Phil] Stop waffling, man!
"When landing on water", they said,
(and presumably not being dead)
"Remove your jacket
from its packet
and place it over your head."

The last three lines are, word for word, part of the script for Ryanair's safety demonstrations, which sound like part of a Limerick every time I hear them (>50 times in the last four years), even though the scansion is, admittedly, a bit stretched.
[Moom] Ha! Oh the irony. An Irish airline oft-ridiculed for the way it handles matters making safety instructions in poor limerick form!
(KS) You'd like this, then:

∫ dcabin/cabin = log cabin.


[penelope] Heard it again today on the way back to GC from England, and have to make a small correction: it's "Remove the jacket". Doesn't help the scansion though.

Stevie -
To a boring volcano experiment
I added magnesium for merriment
And by sad mistake
Thermite I did make
And suffered a temp'ry impediment

[Stevie] Yikes.
[Stevie] An admirable approach to empirical research. Top marks!
Another from a friend...
This young man at graduate school
Did find a red ring ‘round his tool
He went to a clinic
The doctor was cynic:
”Can´t you see it´s just lipstick your fool!”

The proper version...
There was a young girl from Aberystwyth
Who took grain to the mill to get grist with
But the miller's son Jack
Lay her flat on her back
And united the organs they pissed with.

The first "y" in Aberystwyth is actually a schwa. Too bad

Remember, remember, remember!
That day on the fifth of November
When gunpowder, treason
And Popish malfeason
Are why we must traitors dismember.


There was a young lady called Hannah
Who had the effect of a spanner
With no ifs or buts
She could tighten men's nuts
In a frankly incredible manner.


I've been a wild rover, I fear
But the end of my roving draws near
For I'm clean out of dosh
And I drink orange squash
'Cos my insides were ruined by beer


The first valve is pressed firmly down
And the music it moves round and round
Then it comes out from here
In a tone bright and clear
(It began as a lip-farting sound)


I've a love of the tenor trombone
And in that I don't think I'm alone
For some it's The Valve
That's their musical salve
It's The Slide that puts me in The Zone


Eye of Newt, Wing of Bat, Leg of Frog
Anne of Cleves, John o' Groats, Hair of Dog
Add lemon 'til sour
Then stir for an hour
Drink down fast, and then run for the bog

[Stevie] Have three Bravi on me
I wrote this following my first reading of Watership Down - many moons ago ..
Intuition, sixth sense, second sight
Thus the panic began before light
An atmosphere foreign
In their once homely warren
Became reason enough for their flight

Infra Red Spectroscopy
From messing with quantums we glean
That symmetrical modes can't be seen
Asymmetrical change
Dipole moments derange
And a sharp peak's revealed to the keen.

Raman Spectroscopy
A laser makes the bonds vibrate
Just like infra red does. But wait!
With a polarized glow
Only symetric modes show
Which chemists find a useful trait

Because when both techniques are used on the same sample it can remove the need for dicking around with bond extinction coefficients and make structural analysis a matter of mental ball-and-stick topography. Result!

"Let's go to the ice-cap" he said.
"We're British! We can't end up dead!"
Well, the ice got a grip
So we cut up the ship
What we needed by then was a sled.


A question both deep and profound
Is whether a circle is round
In a paper by Erdös
Written in Kurdish
A counterexample is found

Not mine, this one, of course
Which reminds me of this mnemonic one I wrote more than a decade ago:

How I wish I could calculate pi!
Assess twice the ambit. Simplify:
Bisecting through
Canceling two
As the diameter thou divide by.

[CdM] Tremendous!

Möbius bands
A mathematician confided
That a Möbius band is one-sided
And you get quite a laugh
If you cut one in half
For it stays in one piece when divided.

(Anon)

A mathematician named Klein
Thought the Möbius band was divine
He said "If you glue
The edges of two
You get a weird bottle like mine."

(Leo Moser)


I do hope Attila the Stockbroker doesn't mind me posting one that he's just put on Facebook:

A smelly, stub filled old ashtray.
Badly kept Greene King IPA.
Grim, pinched-face psychosis.
Severe halitosis.
That's Faragery in the UK.


A bunch of editor-types with what I correspond came up with a deadly set of alternative lyrics for 'God Save The Queen' but about Oscar Pistorius. It started...
Oscar Pistorius
Short through a door for us
Girlfriend injurious...

I don't think it got an ending because we all decided we would all go straight to hell if we finished it.
Keep up the good work, chaps.
oh, and
Inspired by penelope and other editor-types

An athlete of deeds meritorious,
Whose life had been largely victorious,
With blind gunshots multiple -
Homicide Culpable -
Guilty of acts most inglorious


I like the # one.
Soon frostnights again

During winter we must feed the birds
They are hungry and come in great herds
They love sunflower seeds
It fills most of their needs
And the pay us with white little turds...

And they pay us with white little turds...
I'm just going out for a while
Said Oates, with a hint of a smile.
He's a good chap, I thought
He'll do what he ought
With a stiff upper lip, that's the style!

I once had a highly trained moggie
Who could do anything that a doggie
Could – but it wouldn't.
'Cos cats know they shouldn't.
It's a core part of their psychologgie

That miserable cur, Ebeneezer
Thought Christmas a costly purse-squeezer
Then four ghosts in his sleep
Showed him how being cheap
Made him quite an unpopular geezer.

What's red, fat and goes "ho-ho-ho"?
One's stuck in my chimney, you know
It's blocked up the flue
And between me and you
This prevents proper draw and smoke flow

The stockings were hung up with care
But we snuck down and hid (on a dare)
At eleven o'clock
Me and sis got a shock:
Uncle Frank and our Mam tot'ly bare.

There's a sleigh on me lawn, full of tat
And a bloke lying near, red and fat
It certainly gives pause
To think Santa Clause
Could arrive quite as plastered as that

Two tramps spend a long time in wait.
"Let's go," one says, "Godot is late."
"I'm sure that he'll come,"
Says the other, face glum.
They don't move, but continue to wait.

His codename is Ack-Ack Macaque
He's teamed with a newspaper hack
He's battled the Hun
With booze, cuss and gun
I reckon he's earned his own plaque

Please guide me, by thy steadfast hand
A pilgrim through this barren land
You're mighty, I'm weak
Deliv'rance I seek
And food evermore's what I've planned.

Tom Cromwell served Henry (mark 8)
Juggling life, limb and law for the state
Though for long years traduced
His repute's now been spruced
- for the next episode, we can't wait!

An Easter limerick:
I remember the stable that night
God's birth was a hideous fright
If you crossed him you'd choke
And he'd think it a joke
But we've got him nailed up now, all right.

A very disrespectful, and potentially offensive retelling of the Easter story - hell, here I come (not that you exist). You have been warned!

Hidden textWe killed him, then waited a minute / Took him down, found a tomb, stuck him in it / Rolled a boulder in front / And then somehow that **** / Survived! Now that's magic, innit!

Unashamedly stolen from my Aunty Maureen, who has Scottish parents.
A young fellow called Cholmondeley Colquhoun
Once kept as a pet a babolquhoun
His mother said, "Cholmondeley
Do you think it quite colmondeley
To feed your babolquhoun with a spolquhoun?"

- Inspired by something I read

Boobs boobs boobs, boobs boobs boobs, boobs boobs boobs
Boobs boobs boobs, boobs boobs boobs, boobs boobs boobs
Boobs boobs boobs, boobs boobs
Boobs boobs, boobs boobs boobs
Boobs boobs, boobs boobs boobs, boobs boobs boobs boobs.


To write dirty limericks you need
Dictionaries in which you will read
Dirty words that will match
A word rhyming with "snatch"
If you’re filthy like us you’ll succeed.

But if you're a bit of a cock
With a mind like a smelly old sock
Your feeble endeavour
To seem bright and clever
Just gives us more reason to mock

These boobs just keep running and running
As Stevie writes verse oh-so-cunning
As cool as ice cubes
He delivers his 'boobs'
And his final-line scansion is stunning

Enough of this outrageous hammery,
It makes me all stuttery-stammery,
I blush to my nose,
And just stare at my toes,
When the topic's unceasingly mammary.
(Sorry, wasn't very bold there...)
Not original, but an old favourite because of its sheer silliness:

Said the vicar of Old St Paul's
"Concerning these cracks in the walls,
would it be faster
to use quick-dry plaster?"
And the Bishop of Leicester said "Balls!"



The message came in bit by bit
It was clear things had gone all to shit
The chap on the wireless
Was tapping out, tireless,
Dit-dit-dit, dah-dah-dah, dit-dit-dit.

My name is Mouldy Muldoon
And I am a shade of maroon
That is kind of green
So it's never been seen
But you will discover it soon.

OR

My name is Mouldy Muldoon
And I am a shade of maroon
That is kind of green
With an opulent sheen
That shines with the light of the moon!


It's Monday: can't get out of bed.
It's Tuesday: A gas bill that's red.
It's Wednesday: a bruise.
It's Thursday: blown fuse.
It's Friday: Hooray! Still not dead!

A nod is as good as a wink
To a blind horse. But pause now and think
All this nodding and winking
And unseemly blinking
Could drive the poor creature to drink


Trainspotting in my teen years
Once was a cause for some tears
I was hit by a train
Then a tram, and again
By a linesman who boxed my poor ears


Humidity's getting me down
Every evening the Sun plunges down
But the air remains hot
And I find that it's not
So much sleep I get, more like I drown

A friend mailed me this one:
There was a young lady of Niger
who smiled as she rode on a tiger.
They returned from the ride
with the lady inside
and the smile on the face of the tiger.


If Godot eventually comes
He'll rescue this pair of old bums
They despair of their fate
Yet hope while they wait
That Godot next day surely comes.


Dad, into night, do not go gentle
For all who have made that descent'll
Avow that, old-aged,
Against dusk they raged—
Our desire to stay's fundamental

I don't think I'll never recall
What I've not had nor won't miss at all
I'm torn, yet I'm not
About unthings not got
I'm not running before I can't crawl.


When I attain 26
Balding, with fuses to fix,
Will you grow old with me?
For the best's yet to be
And you can't teach an old dog new tricks


I believe I shall rule the land
And you shall be my right hand
And naught will us keep
In our union deep
For our story's just a one-night stand

A swimmer I wish you could be
So sleek like the kings of the sea
But yet naught again
Shall our closeness maintain
Glory's short-lived dear, you see?

I a time can recall
Where you and I stood 'neath a wall
O'erhead the shots hissed
While you and I kissed
With no fear inside us at all

Perhaps we are nothing my dear
And nothing surrounds us I fear
In which case now flee
This solipsism with me
Heroism's a lousy career


A friend posted this one somewhere else
A prudent young schoolgirl named Lucy
who wanted to do something juicy
along with a dude
undressed herself nude
and stepped in a juice-filled Jacuzzi


There once was a farmer from Polk
Who made a trade for a pig in a poke
Though what I cannot divine
Is word he'd butchered the swine
When the sack held no pig ... what's the joke?

A pilot I know from Phuket
Had Baked beans but had to regret
As this enormous fart
broke t'propeller apart
Now he's feeding a biofuel jet
(Hi Geo, nice to see you are on the air again!
I really don't quite understand
How matters got so out of hand
That even the Pope
Said that he couldn't cope
When Jeremy Clarkson got banned.

Approaching the end of November
I find that it's time to remember
The uncle I hate
And a cousin (or eight)
That I really would like to dismember

'Tra-la-la!' I declaimed, and 'Tee hee!'
'Woo-hoo!' and 'Ha-ha!' and 'Yippee!'
Then later, 'Oh, cock!'
Once I'm not on the clock
And need no more simulate glee
arrow_circle_down
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