Lone Limerick (Limerick-Off Monday)
It’s Limerick-Off time, once again. And that means I write a limerick, and you write your own, using the same first line. Then you post your limerick here and, if you’re a Facebook user, on Facebook too.
The best submission will be crowned Limerick Of The Week. (Here’s last week’s Limerick Of The Week Winner.)
How will your poems be judged? By meter, rhyme, cleverness, and humor. (If you’re feeling a bit fuzzy about limerick writing rules, here’s my How To Write A Limerick article.)
I’ll announce the Limerick of the Week Winner next Sunday, right before I post next week’s Limerick-Off. So that gives you a full week to submit your clever, polished verse. Your submission deadline is Saturday at 11:59 p.m. (Eastern Time.)
I hope you’ll join me in writing a limerick with this first line:
A fellow who needed a loan…*
or
A woman was working alone…*
or
A woman said, “Leave me alone!”…*
or
A fellow who offered a loan…*
*(Please note that minor variations to my first lines are acceptable. However, rhyme words may not be altered, except by using homonyms or homophones.)
Here’s my limerick:
Lone Limerick
By Madeleine Begun Kane
A woman was feeling alone
Cuz her husband was glued to his phone
And was always plugged in
To his iPad and gin.
Seems their marital circuit was blown.
Please feel free to write your own limerick using the same first line and post it in my comments. And if you’re on Facebook, I hope you’ll join my friends in that same activity on my Facebook Limerick-Off post.
To receive an email alert whenever I post a new Limerick-Off, please email Madkane@MadKane.com Subject: MadKane’s Newsletter. Thanks!
Tags: Competition Limerick, Limerick Challenge, Limerick Contest, Poetry & Prompts, Writing Prompts
A fellow who needed a loan…
Searched frantically all alone
Had some leads
But not for keeps
Could just render some big moans
Hank
A maid was working alone
When she was surprised by a man made of bone
Out of the closet he strode
Then walked down the road
To the Rainbow Alliance’s home
A woman said “Leave me alone.”
“I’m tired and worn to the bone.
But after a nap
I’ll sit in your lap
And soon I’ll be making you moan.”
A woman was working alone
On a project she was sure would dethrone
The CEO of a corp
At a speed 10 times warp
He’d be thrown with no bone for the seeds he had sown.
A woman said leave me alone!
Stop political surveys on the phone!
I’ve had over twenty-
That is way too many!
Disturbing dinner I cannot condone!
This Ranger who called himself Lone
His new movie just made critics groan
He told his friend, Tonto
“We need revenge, pronto!
“Let’s call in a strike by a drone!”
A young girl named Molly Malone
Would wander the streets, and she’d drone
“I got cockles and mussels,
“It’s one of my hustles
“Alive, alive, oh’s overblown!”
A woman in need of a loan,
Agreed to have sex on the phone.
The banker had money,
For a husky voiced honey.
His deal was: “One Thousand per Moan.”
A woman was working alone,
when hubby had let it be known,
his libido was wore,
and his wrist was too sore,
she’d have to get there on her own.
A woman who needed a loan
had the patience to sit on the phone
till it laid golden eggs…
the bankers frail begs
We agree to your terms – we condone.
Zan or Zone?
The chemist, with talent alone,
Synthesized the world’s best cortisone,
And his skill in the night:
Courtesans’ sweet delight.
That guy could sure make a hor-mone!
A woman who needed a loan
Had eight children not even half-grown.
To the banker she said,
“I need twelve loaves of bread
And must get my poor doggy a bone!”
A musician needed a loan
of his friend’s brand new trombone
When he broke the slide
His friend had his hide
“‘Tis a sin for which you must atone!”
“So when can I get you alone?”
Said her butcher, who called on the phone.
Seems he misunderstood
When she asked if he could,
With her meat order, give her a bone.
A fellow who needed a loan
hoped someone would throw him a bone,
he was down on his luck
and he needed a buck
for his fetish, collecting cologne.
A woman was working alone,
on graveyard, enslaved as a drone,
she broke out of her chains,
launched successful campaigns.
became wealthy, all on her own.
A woman said “Leave me alone!”
to her husband, who whined to be prone,
“Don’t think I’m your play-toy,
or that this is a coy-ploy,
just please do forever postpone!”
A fellow who needed a loan
His bank’s stony heart did bemoan.
They said no. They were curt.
To his plan—”a dead cert!”
The door, very firmly, was shown.
At the Queen’s garden party, alone
Stood a man who to joking was prone.
But what made him chuckle
Was too near the knuckle
For guests there. (It lowered the tone.)
By her signature perfume alone
One could tell she had sat on the throne
The antimacassar
Smelt of Kölnisches Wasser
Or (more commonly) eau de Cologne.
By sitting quite still and alone
In the midst of a party full-blown
The mood you’ll disrupt
In a way more abrupt
Than if you were playing trombone.
A woman said, “Leave me alone!
You seriously call that a stone?”
Lest she grew colder
Her swain dug a boulder
From the gem mine (Sierra Leone)
Hilversum, Warsaw, Athlone …
Far cities exotic just known
From the wireless set’s band.
One could dream of each land
As the tuning dial moved through each zone.
Lady Gaga is never alone
Alter ego is so overblown
Some say he is slick
Still looks like a chick
Cross dressing as Joe Calderone
I love this one!
A woman said, “Leave me alone!
I don’t need a man or his bone.
I’d prefer your sister.
D’you care if I kister?”
“I don’t, but her husband might frown.”
REWRITE
A woman said, “Leave me alone!
I don’t need a man or his bone.
I’d prefer your sister.
D’you care if I kister?”
“I don’t, but her husband might, Joan.”
A woman was feeling alone
cause her husband to Pittsburg had blown.
If I’d not busted balls
then may well have forestalled
need to get myself off on my own.
This one fellow needed a loan
To do what his broker had shown
“If you raise the cash
I double your stash
In a flash, or stay broker alone.”
The cowboy snarled, “I work alone,
So don’t taunt me, wiseass, on your roan!”
Tonto grinned: the Lone Ranger
Had a real rep for danger;
‘Twas then White Hat let out a groan.
“I’ve got a big job coming due!
Don’t know you, Braids, but you might do.
Will you ride to the border?
And follow my order?
If so, we’ll part ways when it’s through.”
…That’s how LR and Tonto got started
And as far as we know, never parted.
It’s an alt history
Mixed with some mystery,
Like many ’bout those now departed.
A worn out lecher living alone
Had injections of Testosterone
Prescribed by his Doc
To stiffen his cock
Hoping he could still make a hormone.
A horse breeder needed a loan
A contract breach suit she’d been shown
She said she’d been libelled
For selling a piebald
Which the buyer claimed was a blue roan
Some will rhyme “scone” with “alone”
But “scone” said like “gone” is well known.
A scone’s split, we spread butter
We are split how we utter
The name of this treat. I could groan!
He murmured, I need a small loan
To buy me a warm, filling scone.
Can you spare just one buck?
I’ve been down on my luck.
…Stomach full now, but he’s still alone
His Unc Stanley seemed ripe for a loan
But approaching, was met with a groan:
“Here comes Derrick again;
Offered five, wheedled ten
Thousand more!” Stan was heard to bemoan.
But nephew persisted: “Dire straits,
I must have it now!” his voice grates.
Stan shakes his head faster
At Derrick’s ‘disaster’:
“Broke again? It’s the will of the Fates!”
A woman was working alone,
In a vineyard on the banks of the Rhone,
Her beautiful vines,
Grew in perfect straight lines,
And her wine never garnered a moan.
A woman lived all alone,
In a nice part of old town Cologne,
But this beautiful lady,
Was really quite shady.
Her aim was to lower the tone.
An old woman wanted a loan,
So she went a bank in Cologne
She got all her dosh,
Without using a cosh,
That’s how a crone in Cologne got a loan.
A woman said, “Leave me alone!”,
in quite the insolent tone,
her suitor did leave
with his heart on his sleeve,
as the old crone continued to moan!
In Eden sat Eve all alone
Until Adam appeared with his bone
And after he bit her apple
They started to grapple
And the seeds of life were then sown
With Alzheimers your brain’s all alone
But even though memories have flown
It’s not as bad as they say
For in the space of one day
Many new friendships are sewn.
If your mad when you wake up alone
Finding money all gone with the crone
You slept with last night
Don’t get real uptight
Just wank till your anger has flown.
I vote for RBasler!
She eagerly got him alone,
And grinded away with him prone.
But in a short while,
He was spent, with a smile.
She so wished he had come with a clone.
Moaning Maid
a woman lamented alone
her king’s heart made of stone
he left her to cry
and eventually die
so she haunted him from his throne
A woman who felt all alone
Spent all of her days on the phone
Her service provider
Sent her a reminder
And now she’s in need of a loan.
The cowboy went out all alone
To saddle “The Strawberry Roan”
But, the horse bucked and kicked
And would not be licked.
He crawled back to his bunk with a groan.
If you go to a shark for a loan,
Be prepared for the “vig,” as it’s known.
One percent every day
To keep “Vinnie” away
And his minions with hearts made of stone.
A fellow who needed a loan
to self-publish a book of his poems.
Had meter terrific,
but rhymes hieroglyphic.
Hence his verse was as blank as they come.
A fellow who needed a loan
sought to purchase a new mobile home.
His professed aesthetic
was peripatetic.
Like a chick from the coop he had flown.
I went out for some sushi alone.
Had some eel and, of course, abalone.
Mispronounced? Yes I know it.
But I am a poet.
And my license allows for balone.
What she said was, “You leave me alone!”
What she MEANT was what he should have known
But as is the case
For the whole male race
We do NOT know, as we’ve all clearly shown
A fellow who needed a loan
Could not raise the cash on his own
I’m not saying he’s broke
But his paycheck’s a joke
He could use it to wipe on the throne
“Do these pants make my butt fat alone?”
“Not your pants, but you’re close, you old crone.
Though the pants’ seat may swell
Like the Liberty Bell,
Your crack’s bigger, if the hole truth be known!”
A woman said, “Leave me alone!”
To a fellow who offered a loan.
“I don’t need your money.
I’ve got my own, honey.
I made my own alone as a lone.”
The role was the actor’s alone,
A character that he would own.
He surely was cocky
To create hero Rocky,
Who greatly enriched Sly Stallone.
A woman was reading alone
“The Life’s Work of Plato”, by Dan Stone
She was very confused
By the spelling he used
“Surely Play-Doh’s the spelling best known?”
Heathcliff wanders the moors, all alone,
Where the wind and the waters make moan;
But what troubles him most
Isn’t Catherine’s ghost:
It’s the game that he plays on his phone.
Victor Frankenstein dies in his bunk.
His head hits the bed with a thunk.
Outside, in the cold,
Lurks a story untold
(Captain Walton’s off tweeting his junk).
The “Pequod” just drifts with the gale:
Captain Ahab’s forgotten the whale,
As the crew sings along
With that Carly Rae song:
“Here’s my number. So call me Ishmael.”
“An die Freude” its climax is bringing
When van Beethoven’s cellphone starts ringing.
His novelty ringtone
Just ruins the string tone
And throws off the chorus’s singing.
(It’s a sad situation, it’s true,
But there’s nothing much more we can do
To correct what’s gone wrong:
We’ve ignored it so long,
Now our culture’s ignoring us, too.)
She, sultry, declared, “You’re on loan
To Jennifer, Amy and Joan
For this Saturday night:
Honey, treat those gals right!”
‘Lucky’ Chuck staggered home with a groan
And, wincing, he crawled into bed,
Then carefully rested his head
(Plus the one on his neck).
He complained, “I’m a wreck!
No one said they’d invited Big Ed
Who showed up and oh, man, were we toasted;
Things got going: I sang and he boasted.
Your three friends got a treat,
We kept time to the beat…
We’re on YouTube: I checked, it was posted.”
A woman lived all alone,
In a beach house she christened “Ozone”,
She once shouted “Shit”,
At Angelina and Pitt,
She does charity work to atone.
(I thought I could live with an inexact rhyme. Turns out I can’t. Line 1 of stanza 4 of my entry up there should read, “‘An die Freude’ its climax is bringing” Otherwise I won’t get a decent night’s sleep.)
Note from Mad Kane: I fixed it for you. So now you can nap. :)
A man in a garden alone,
when offered to trade in a bone
for a suitable mate,
replied, “That’d be great,
but I’ll be better off on my own.”
A man used to being alone
procreated himself on his own.
“‘Twas easy,” he stated,
“I just masturbated
and ejaculated a clone.”
The queen bellowed, “Leave me alone!
First, bring me my pipe of homegrown!”
The Page said, “I can’t,
Your highness, I shan’t
Condone a stoned crone on a throne!”
This limerick I wrote on my own
gave up trying to rhyme to ‘alone.’
“Who knows,” I’ll complain,
“whether pleasure or pain,
but I’ve heard one too many a ‘moan.’”
A women shouted, “Leave me alone!”
in an very irritated tone.
It frightened her niece
who left her in peace
to finish her job on the throne.
A porn star was working alone
’cause filming they couldn’t postpone.
Her co-star had been canned
so with sex toy in hand
she played both the parts with a moan.
I’m in “Limerick Comp”, not alone,
Circumventing? Mad’s steely-eyed groan
As she takes in each error;
Is that weekend, the bearer
Of wins: My grins trump my loud moan
When I see my name’s not on her list.
I assume I was brilliant but missed
Being on the same wavelength,
ESP’s not my main strength.
Oh, there’s always next week for new grist :)
in honor of the Carnegie Tech Kiltie Band and their sometimes raunchy cheers:
The bagpiper marches alone
What he wears neath his kilt is unknown.
But it kinnae be borin’,
If you’re watchin’ his sporran,
It rises and falls with his drone.
This poet writes best when alone,
She cackles and feels “in the zone”:
She loves every word;
Wants each line to be heard
By others, she hopes, who won’t groan!
The Queenly Quipster
Pronounced she, “Please leaf me alone
In my garden!” Spouse lets out a moan:
She’s punning again,
Until who knows when!
He knows once she picks up the phone
And he hears her melodious tones
Punctuated by shrieking and groans;
It can be no other,
She’s called her dear mother…
Two hours at least!, he bemoans.
“I vant to be,” said she, “alone.”
But you can’t be and have a smart phone.
Whatever you vant
You must know that you cahn’t
Get away from that *%$#@ ringtone.
The trouble with sex all alone
Is nobody can hear you moan
You may do it well
But there’s no one to tell
If you’ve captured that exquisite tone.
Did a little editing:
The bagpiper marches alone
What he wears neath his kilt is unknown.
But it kinnae be borin’:
When watchin’ his sporran,
It rises and falls with his drone.
A woman who wanted a loan
From a scoundrel was driven to groan:
“He’s insisting I pay
With a roll in the hay.
So my ‘bargaining skills’ I must hone.”
When this gal got the sleazeball alone
(That’s the guy who so wished to get prone),
She said, “Sorry, you’re hosed
‘Cause the hayloft is closed.
If you want a roll, try Cinnabon.”
He wanted his loan to be lone,
Not linked by the bank to his phone
And their cars and the house.
To his spouse he did grouse:
For our debts, we must both now atone.
She retorted, “You earn more than me:
Why should I share your penalty?”
He snapped, “You spend more!
And we’re headed straight for
The poorhouse: just hand us the key.”
Now it’s lunches from home each workday;
Morning Starbucks no longer holds sway.
They make do with much less,
Re-examined “success”.
The moral? Spend less than your pay.
A sailor at last had outgrown
a sweetheart’s name long proudly shown.
“Thing is,” said he,”I’ve its
tattoo on my privates.
It’s not like it’s carved into stone.”
A guy should have taken a loan
Ere he took out a girl on his own.
His full bill for their date
Was a buck ninety-eight.
But he *did* let her choose cup or cone.
My guy’s very frugal: no loan!
The mortgage alone, he’d intone.
Fifteen years – it’s paid off;
Wore I hat, it I’d doff
To my spouse: how our savings have grown :)
I’m aware Mad’s site’s only on “loan”,
Like right now, when I can’t post! (big groan)
Feeling oh, so deprived
(Will you find I’ve survived?)
I’ve adopted a petulant tone :(
A musician who lived all alone
Tried playing an old xylophone
With the knob of his dong
But before very long
He’d worn it right down to the bone.
How I love all my “me time” alone!
Online, reading…so much to be known
While I cherish some people,
The price can be steep – pull
Your weight: TWO-way friendships have grown.
I’m selective – be witty but kind;
Many pleasures, shared treasures we’ll find.
You play games? Try to use me?
Hey, one chance to abuse me:
You struck out. Please remove your (large) hind.
I was tired of being alone
And decided I needed a clone
So there is myself
Up there on the shelf
For onan and my very own.
italics test
Thanks, Mad!
Here I am sitting alone
The king of the world on his throne
There’s just one small issue
I’m all out of tissue
In this case, a sine qua non.
He, 50, declaimed, “I’m alone!”
In a most whiney, querulous tone.
A woman walked by,
Looked him straight in the eye –
“There’s a reason, as you’ve amply shown.”
Well, Edmund, you’re hardly alone;
It’s a problem most of us have known.
Socially, hands are “banned”;
Clothing, towel? Take a stand!
Fear to glance at the floor – me, I groan.
A miss who yelled, “Leave me alone,”
Wound up so completely unknown,
She got left when her id
Did exactly as bid,
While her ego reaps seeds she has sown.
An also-ran stood all alone
how electors his stance might condone,
but his campaign’s deceased
over what got released
of the evidence straight from his phone.
I never felt quite so alone
as when you said you were with Joan
and Melissa and Sue.
They got to hold you
while I was left holding the phone.
I tend to think better alone
and prefer to solve things on my own.
Even so, one can dream
of how easy it’d seem
if I were as smart as my phone.
“I just as soon be left alone,”
a Jersey miss said to her phone.
“You may be a stud, son,
your side of the Hudson,
but you don’t swing enough for Bayonne.”
Oh alright, if we must, then alone
we’ll resolve things in Syria’s zone.
If they’re going to use gas
on their people en masse,
al-Assad, meet a CIA drone.
My limericks I edit alone,
so meant “I’d” where “I” has been shown,
in my one two before this
so will add this one more kiss
to leave well alone what I don’.
At last thinking he’s now alone
in a no-NSA-allowed zone,
Mister Snowden’s secure,
his privacy sure
with Russia now watching his phone.
A swank dude used so much cologne
that it perfumed him through to the bone.
You’ll find where he’s buried
by the fragrances carried
from the daisies now over him grown.
What one might resort to alone,
two don’t have to, each to her own
while watching each other,
but can do one another
while preferably suitably prone.
I’m thrilled to see I’m not alone
sharing laughs in Mad Kane’s humor zone.
I don’t care one iota
if I’m over my quota—
this blog is a vice I condone!
The lady said “leave me alone
or I’ll put a kink in your bone”
The creep laughed and persisted,
so she grabbed hold and twisted.
Now he walks with a moan and a groan.
Designing my weblog alone
would exhibit how little I’ve known
about HTML,
since I can’t seem to tell
how in various browsers I’m shown.
[with deepest gratitude to Mad, who knows the chrome this one was hammered out of]
She swims in the river alone
So that no one can hear her loud moan
For she loves how it feels
When one of the eels
Finds her erogenous zone.
This morning I woke up alone,
sat all day simply watching the phone,
somehow got myself fed,
sent myself back to bed,
said, “Tomorrow’s a day I’ll postpone.”
A fellow who needed a loan,
Though his credit was bankruptcy-prone,
Heard the manager say:
“Ev’ry dog has his day,
But we’re not gonna throw you a bone.”
A lady who wanted a loan
Called the bank but then hung up the phone,
As the bankers preferred
A mortgage secured
In Manhattan instead of Bayonne.
The actor Sylvester Stallone
As Rocky will ever be known.
In sequel on sequel,
He’s always the equal
Of punches and jabs that are thrown.
The explorer Cristóbal Colón,
Who sailed with the aid of the throne,
Put the New World through pains
In declaring as Spain’s
Possession this land for her own.
The US may go it alone
Now that chemical weapons are known,
For our policy brass
Will risk a morass
So as not to appear to condone.
It isn’t by rhyming alone
That a limerick sets the right tone,
But with humor risqué
And a dash of wordplay
To rate the occasional groan.
Uncle Sam soon will ask for a loan
to replace funds the government’s blown.
Democrats say, “OK,” though
Republicans, “No!!”
We the people the shaft will be shown.
A dude acting as if alone
on the highway is now lying prone
on a hospital bed
lucky not to be dead
after driving while texting his phone.
After punning, I’m left all alone
‘Cause I make people grimace and moan.
If you think they’re bad now,
Then imagine just how
Bad they’ll be when my puns are full groan.
To a brothel he goes, all alone,
In the city’s most dangerous zone;
He’s disguised as a john
For a story he’s on,
But he’s hoping his cover gets blown.
A woman said, “Leave me alone!
I do not like your rudeness or tone.
I’m not taking your shit!
Oh, you think I won’t do it?”
Click. Yep, I just hung up the phone.
The winner? Mad Kane knows, alone;
My limerick skills I might hone.
They have piss-azz? or zing?
A most subjective thing:
Hubby runs, while Mom praises I’ve grown…
Faint and weak from a lack of nutrition.
Must need coffee and more ammunition.
My next subject will be —
Take a breath, count to three:
Brain freeze, ARGH! (Here’s my umpteenth submission.)
Since his injury, Bob sings alone
edging off from his group’s microphone.
With the other guys’ throats
he now hits the high notes,
though he used to sing low baritone.
I’m painfully here all alone
And trying to pass this darned stone.
It’s not as much fun
As a really bad pun
But (ooooh!) it can sure make you groan.
I write mine for writing alone,
not for prize or position to own,
so here’s hoping that Mad
sticks the ones I have had
in a place where the sun hasn’t shone.
On his own bread man can’t live alone,
but goes far if the bread’s not his own.
“Beg, borrow or steal,
bread’s only for real,”
says the tempter, “is bread sold as stone.”
It’s time to leave this prompt alone
with drone-thrown moan on a flown groan.
I’ll try not to screw it
up next time I do it.
(This feels like I just passed a stone.)
A fellow was working alone
while bosses discussed over scones
freezing all pay rates
till TBA dates
and firing him for temp drones.
Thanks so much everyone for another fun week of limericks. This Limerick-Off is officially over. And the winner is…
Congratulations to the Limerick of the Week Winner, the Facebook Friends’ Choice Award Winner, and the Honorable Mention Winners:
Limerick of the Week 129.
But you can still have lots of limerick fun because a new Limerick-Off has just begun: A Limerick Indeed.
A woman who lives all alone
Tips the scales at twenty one stone
Her last weigh in failed
When the talking scales wailed
“Get off!, Use the weighbridge you crone”
Ah, I see that I’m far from alone
In my time as a limerick “drone”.
These are fun, as you know;
I love being in flow :)
You may groan, but through Mad I have grown.
We both missed the boat Patrice
Yes, and the train too, Radnoft!