A friend shared the following John Cooper Clarke limerick with me recently. It reminded me of how much fun limericks were when I was younger and how entertaining really good ones are. Any others?
Two ugly sisters from Fordham
Took a walk one day out of boredom
On the way back
A sex maniac
Jumped out of a bush and ignored ’em
They used to have a round on I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue where Humphrey Lyttleton gave out the first line and the panellists had to produce a limerick doing one line each. One of them went:
Ben Kingsley while dressed up as Ghandi
Went into the bar for a shandy
To wipe up the froth
He used his loin cloth
And the barmaid said, “Blimey, that’s handy!”
And after typing that first limerick, I found my I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue Official Limerick Collection which includes these:
The artist formerly known as Prince
On stage he would posture and mince
Then just for a giggle
Changed his name to a squiggle
And nobody’s heard of him since
When it snows you will find Sister Sledge
Out mooning at night on the ledge
One storey down
Is the maestro James Brown
Displaying his meat and two veg
I’m up for the challenge and it’s going to be pissing down all day. If someone fancies coming up with a first line I’ll give it a go…
You’re on.
In Tesco’s with Earth Wind and Fire…
I’d like this to have been funny, but “fire” is a difficult rhyme š
In Tescoās with Earth Wind and Fire
Phil Bailey was smelling papaya
I said “Remember
These aren’t ripe till September,
Let’s look for a different supplier.”
š
I couldnāt remember if EW&F had drummers that floated during stage shows. I have a faint recollection. I came up with, whilst walking my dog:
In Tescoās with Earth Wind and Fire
Searching for ingredients to inspire
With none to be found
I turned right around
And got hit by a drummer and flyer
AI came up with:
In Tesco’s with Earth Wind and Fire,
An epic dance battle transpired.
The broccoli was groovin’,
The milk cartons were movin’,
And the bananas all rocked with desire!
In Tesco’s with Earth, Wind and Fire,
Phil Collins got caught with desire.
While trumpets were playing,
And Maurice was swaying,
He whipped out his drumstick entire.
In Tesco’s with Earth Wind and Fire
Aqua sang Barbie Girl, backed by Wire
It’s elemental, someone said
Shut up, Gotobed!
It’s three for two on kidney bingos, (when they expire)
In Tescoās with Earth Wind and Fire
You know that I would be a liar
If I said to you
Time to hesitate is through
Girl we couldnāt get that much higher
I recall an ISIHAC limerick by Barry Cryer. About a dog. It made me snort at the time but Iām buggered if I can either remember it or find it on the web.
Could it have been this one?
I’ve a small breed of dog called a Scottie
Who’s house-trained and sits on a potty
He gives a loud yap
The mischievous chap
Then stands up and wipes his wee botty
I’m loving rediscovering this book!
It was. Itās brilliant. Good work Mr Walsh!
There once was a man from the sticks
Who loved to compose limericks
But he failed at his sport
They were always too short
Iād guess over 90% of Limericks are these days regarded as unprintable- & mostly rightly so.
That said, my late Dad always liked
āThere an old man from Bengal, who had a mathematical ball,
The sum of its weight, plus two fourths & three eighths,
Was precisely one fifth of f*ck allā
If this is a polite rebuke to me for what I’ve posted above then I do apologise for any offence caused.
Absolutely not, Steve, no dig at all intended.
As a youngster, I loved accumulating limericks to recite (for reasons best known to my younger self) but the ones I remember are all of the ā Ealingā¦feelingā¦ceilingā variety & a bit off colour by todayās standards.
Thatās a bit of a shame because the filthiest ones are actually the funniest.
Like this?
There was a young lady from Ealing
Who sat watching flies on the ceiling
Magnetic induction
Or is it just suction
Are they sitting, standing or kneeling?
Hats off!
Witty *and* clean!
Arf, you sound like the olden days: ānothing blue, pleaseāā¦..
Just think of me as Max Miller.
I see that Frank Skinner is attempting to perform a non blue show at the Fringe.
There’s an ISIHAC Facebook group and for several years I joined in with a limerick-making thread. If you finished the last rhyme, you started the next with the first line. In my time I started limericks with all the Kings and Queens of England in order, each letter of the alphabet with every word starting with the same letter, every state in the USA, etc. It all got a bit tedious with some not playing fair, so a few of us formed a breakaway FB group, devoted just to limericks, still going strong to this day.
I love limericks
This recent one might amuse – I’m quite proud of my opening line.
It’s said, from Rhodes, all roam to Leeds
Where Brian Clough had planted some seeds
They didn’t last long
Insufficiently strong
And those that came up were just weeds.
An oldie (not mine):
Entertaining the Duchess at tea
I was asked, āDo you fart when you pee?ā
I replied with some wit
āDo you belch when you shit?ā
And Iād say that was one-up to me.
There was a young man from Peru
Whose limericks ended at line 2.
AI suggests.
There once was a poetic form,
That had us all caught in its swarm.
With just five lines,
And a rhythm that chimes,
Limericks became a literary norm.
From silly to serious topics so grand,
Limericks can fit any demand.
From a man from Kent,
To an old man with a bent,
Limericks are the best in the land.
So whether you’re clever or not,
Just give limericks your best shot.
With rhymes that are witty,
And lines that are gritty,
You’ll find this form’s hard to top.
I love writing limericks, but I’ve only done it in Swedish…
So here you go, for the two or three that can understand it! š
Man sƤger att tornet i Babel
fick man att mot man dra sin sabel
Men det blev redan brƄk
trots gemensamt sprƄk
mellan brƶderna Kain och Abel
š
Excellent stuff @Locust!
I’ve googled a little and found several other (rather blue) limericks in Swedish.
https://xn--dligaskmt-12ae.se/k/limerickar
It make me wonder how many languages limericks are written in.
https://spektrum.fi/spektraklet/limericks-med-for-och-av-spektrum/
To try to answer my own question, here’s one in German..
Ein Wahlhelfer aus Alabama
Bekam zum Geburtstag ein Lama.
Er war Demokrat
Und schritt gleich zur Tat:
Er nannte das Lama Obama.
However it seems there are not many languages that have “anapestic feet” which are crucial for the rhythm of a limerick.
An anapestic foot is two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable.
I am certain that the thousands of people who write limerick have NO idea whatsoever what an anapestic foot is.
This page explains it.
https://mammothmemory.net/english/literature/poetry-vocabulary/limerick.html#:~:text=A%20limerick%20is%20five%20lines,(anapest)%20on%20his%20leg.
I had an antiseptic foot once.
Forgetting PC
There was a copper from Crewe Junction
Whose prick just wouldnāt function
So for years of his life he fooled his wife
With snot on the end of his truncheon
I was set this first line a few weeks ago. I was quite pleased with the results given where you inevitably go.
There was an old man from Nantucket
With a passion for a KFC bucket
One day it came raw
Which he felt was quite poor
But he said āFuck it, I may as well pluck itā
There once was a dirty old monk
Who fell asleep one night in his bunk
He dreamt that Venus
Was sucking his elbow
And woke up all covered in saliva
I may have misremembered some of the words.
There once was a man
from cork, who got limericks
and haikus confused
Going back to the original post. I’m off to see JCC in Dublin in September. I hope I remember his anti-Limerick correctly…*
There was a young man from Dundee,
Who got stung on the arm by a wasp,
When asked if it hurt,
He said “not that much”,
It can do it again if it likes.
* can’t do the voice.
This has long been a favourite.
While Titian was mixing rose madder,
His model reclined on a ladder.
Her position to Titian
Suggested coition,
So he leapt up the ladder and had ‘er.
Just discovered this down a limerick rabbit hole (I like limericks with internal rhymes):
To his bride said the keen-eyed detective,
“Can it be that my eyesight’s defective?
Has the east tit the least bit
The best of the west tit,
Or is it the faulty perspective?”
My favourite:
Young ladies of ample proportions
Should take contraceptive precautions.
But poor little Ermintrude
Let just one sperm intrude;
Does anyone here do abortions?
Poor ‘squeezer’s feeling under the weather
But it’s given him a chance for a blether
Because of his hip
That’s giving him gyp
He’s now at the end of his tether
Brilliant, Hubert! Perhaps we’ll now see a few more limericks about each other,
Hmm! Not so easy to find rhymes for Tigger-
Has anyone ever written a limerick about your home town?
(I tried to find it on Google but couldn’t remember the spelling. Duh!)
I’ll see what I can do but may be without the Internet for a week.
Hecky is up there near Dewsbury,
Which is quite a long way from Shrewsbury,
It’s nearer to Leeds,
For tonsorial needs,
But is hopeless to go for a cruise; very.
Haven’t had time to concoct however to tie in with your literary thread G K Chesterton based his character on a priest in Heckmondwike and wrote this.
To Father O’Connor
by G. K. Chesterton
This is a book I do not like,
Take it away to Heckmondwike,
A lurid exile, lost and sad
To punish it for being bad.
You need not take it from the shelf
(I tried to read it once myself:
The speeches jerk, the chapters sprawl,
The story makes no sense at all)
Hide it your Yorkshire moors among
Where no man speaks the English tongue.
Hail Heckmondwike! Successful spot!
Saved from the Latin’s festering lot,
Where Horton and where Hocking see
The grace of Heaven, Prosperity.
Above the chimneys, hung and bowed
A pillar of most solid cloud;
To starved oppressed Italian eyes,
The place would seem a Paradise,
And many a man from Como Lake,
And many a Tyrolese would take
(If priests allowed them what they like)
Their holidays in Heckmondwike.
The Belgian with his bankrupt woes,
Who through deserted Brussels goes,
The hind that threads those ruins bare
Where Munich and where Milan wereā
Hears owls and wolves howl like Gehenna
In the best quarters of Vienna,
Murmurs in tears, āAh, how unlike
The happiness of Heckmondwike!ā
In Spain the sad guitar they strike,
And, yearning, sing of Heckmondwike;
The Papal Guard leans on his pike
And dreams he is in Heckmondwike.
Peru’s proud horsemen long to bike
But for one hour in Heckmondwike;
Offered a Land Bill, Pat and Mike
Cry: āGive us stonesāin Heckmondwike!ā
Bavarian Bier is good, belike:
But try the gin of Heckmondwike.
The Flamands drown in ditch and dyke
Their itch to be in Heckmondwike:
Rise, Freedom, with the sword to strike!
And turn the world to Heckmondwike.
Take then this book I do not likeā
It may improve in Heckmondwike.
There’s a town in the North that’s called Heckmondwike
Hubes cycles through there on his bike
But the traffic through town
Really gets him down
Does he like it? does he heck as like.
Too many syllables in first line, or is the town pronounced without attention to spelling? I am assuming a Yorkshire ātheā, I should add.
It was early morning I was tired. ( there’s a town in t’North called Heckmondwike) better?
You have permission to change it @retropath2
There’s a town in t’North that’s called Hecky,
Where they don’t spend much brass on the leccy,
Instead of the mains,
They rely on the drains,
To fire up the gas for their brekky.
ā¬ļø
Excellent.
There was a young gaucho called Bruno
Who said:”There is something I do know –
A lady is fine,
A cow is divine,
But a llama is numero uno”
As an exercise I tried writing one in English and came up with this:
A tree-hugging man from Madrid
tried the old-fashioned life off-the-grid
But his grandfather clock
kept repeating Tik Tok
so I doubt that he properly did
Which is OK for a first try, but not very funny!
šš
For my second try I had to make things more complicated, of course…
Topical, a tricky place name to rhyme, and an extra in-rhyme added.
For the longest time I couldn’t think of a last line, then I wasted a lot of time trying to shoe-horn the author JosĆ© Saramago into the narrative! Finally a lying Shakespeare character (wearing a red baseball cap) came to my rescue.
I’m not perfectly happy with the metre, but I refuse to spend any more time trying to fix it!
A recent resident of Mar-a-Lago
who takes precedence at the bar at Spago
Will soon face a bar
that can make him or mar
to hesitant fans of this MAGA Iago*
(*No, that’s a capital i, not a lower case L!)
(It’s not very good, but I like that I resisted using the word president, and that “MAGA Iago” sounds a bit like famous Russian witch Baba Yaga…)
I’ll spare you any further attempts! š
Don’t be harsh on yourself, Locust. I like both of your verses – the Tik Tok one IS funny, and MAGA Iago is just classy, both for the mental image it conjures up, and for the rhyme with Mar-a-Lago.
Robert Conquest, a mate of Kinglsey Amis and Philip Larkin, wrote one of my favourites-
There was a young fellow called Shit
Who hated his name quite a bit
So he changed it to Shite
a step in the right
direction I think you’ll admit.
Thatās very good.
Some more of his here-
https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2015/aug/06/robert-conquest-historian-poet-death-love-limericks
Backstage at most gigs you’ll see Tigger
His appearance would make him seem bigger
Until it is found
That he’s not quite stage-bound
But in fact is merely a ligger