[pen] I really don't want to start another scansion war; god knows we have had enough of these. And I agree (and almost said, and should have said) that your line was ok except for the peculiar stress on a preposition. (Maybe you meant to set a limerick in which we would contrast talking of mice and men with talking to them? :-) ) But the other lines ... I'm sorry, but even with a lot of squeezing and twisting, they really can't be made to work. And, yes, I deleted a syllable. So what? Each line becomes prone to expansion
The longer they get [pen] To be fair, I read your opener about 12 times and couldn't get it to fit what I consider a limerick pattern. But as CdM says, we don't want to go down the road of another scansion war (see the York archives for what happens when things get really ugly).