Limerick Design (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 11:00 p.m. (Eastern Time.)
I hope you’ll join me in writing a limerick with this first line:
A woman worked hard to design…*
or
A man who taught graphic design…*
*(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:
Limerick Design
By Madeleine Begun Kane
A woman worked hard to design
A footwear and sports clothing line.
But she could not compete
With a trend-setter’s feat:
Selling pricey couture made of twine.
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
THE SERMON
An intelligent being’s design
Created the humanoid line.
Darwin’s theory is flawed
‘Cause there’s no need for God
Or a preachin’ job, and I need mine.
I had a lubricious design
On a beautiful neighbour of mine.
Though I fancied my chances,
She spurned my advances
And said I must wait in the line.
Disclaimer: this isn’t me speaking!
It’s increasingly hard to design
A limerick destined to shine,
For I always come last
When I foolishly cast
My fake pearls before real swine.
Their software is bad by design,
With bugs that are far from benign.
Their customers shrug as
The Microsoft buggers
Announce they must buy Windows 9.
Creationists claim a design
Just a few thousand years down the line.
Their reasoning’s glib:
“Woman came from a rib
At a date that we call Anno Dyne.”
The priest had a cunning design;
The choirboys queued up in a line
For communion, fed
With the wafers of bread
And the drugs that he’d put in the wine.
De traveler gasped at de sign
“De pistols of Andy Devine”
He had come just to see ’em
At de Sidekick Museum!
So he quickly got into de line
A woman worked hard to design
A menu for her Valentine.
A great vegan feast
That he’d want to eat
It still had to taste just divine.
A woman worked hard to design
A model of her man, devine…
He has to be sexy
Can’t hurt to be wealthy,
With intellect that is sublime.
A woman worked hard to design
A plan for a guy she’d entwine
In matrimonial bliss
So she gave him a kiss
Then soon on a bed she’d recline.
A man who taught graphic design
Once took a smart student to dine.
He showed her his work
She thought “such a jerk”
But she had a good time on Rhine wine.
A woman worked hard to design
A snare for a guy so devine.
“I want him so much,
I long for his touch!
I know that some day he’ll be mine.”
A scandalous spying design
Caused President Nixon’s decline.
His brash overreach
Cause the House to impeach
And led Tricky Dick to resign.
A scandalous spying design
Led to President Nixon’s decline.
His brash overreach
Caused the House to impeach
And led Tricky Dick to resign.
Bertolucci explained his design
For ’Last Tango’. Said Brando, “Yeah, fine.”
But the crew heard him mutter
“I’ll need lotsa butter
To go where the sun doesn’t shine.”
A comic worked hard to design
A routine which allowed him to shine.
He’d set out a bowl,
Spike the juice then cajole
Out the laughs from his happy punch line.
The Professor explained the design
Of the tangent, the sine and cosine.
“With a triangle, why,
It’s as easy as pi –
Pay attention! I’m drawing the line.”
A woman worked hard to design
her idyllic man and refine
his manners and tastes
though that was a waste
at least she can keep me in line
This woman works hard to design
Equivalence, and to define
The rights to my womb
Yet some still presume
my most private choice isn’t mine
Adolf Hitler conceived a design
To exterminate Communist swine.
He reneged on his pact
With the Reds, and attacked –
But at Stalingrad, end of the line.
Was it accident, was it design?
She went to her parents to dine,
But my wife came home early
And caught me with Shirley,
Whose parts were entangled with mine.
I tried as a child to design
a car that was balsa, not pine
When the time came to go
it proved awfully slow
My Cub Scouting then did decline
A woman worked hard to design
An After Ten dress to define
Her nice set of cones
And erogenous zones
But her date ripped it off before nine!!
A man who taught graphic design
Would hire what he’d define kine*
To paint in his classes
Cause girls with fat asses
Give acres more practice; the swine…
*Kine- plural of cow, so in this context a group of large, obese, slovenly women.
Kine
Thanks for the lead-in, Jon…
Our language is strange in design.
If the plural of “cow” can be “kine,”
Then explain to me how
Just one swine’s not a “swow”
And a bride doesn’t take wedding vine?
A simpleton sought to design
a nincompoop’s new lager line
Betwixt beer and no food
a kerfuffle ensued
Amber suds turned the dolts into swine
A woman asked God to design
A companion who’d treat her just fine.
But the spare rib – bad luck! –
Was a pig’s, so she’s stuck
With another male chauvinist swine.
[Two minor revisions, in line with Facebook]
It’s increasingly hard to design
A limerick destined to shine,
For I always come last
When I foolishly cast
My fake pearls before genuine swine.
The priest had a cunning design;
The choirboys queued up in a line
For communion, fed
With the wafers of bread
And the rape-drug he’d put in the wine.
When faced with intelligent design
Atheists think it crosses the line
Becomes a lightning rod
To deny there’s a God
Or two or three at end of the line
To this day they’re still seeking a sign
More water that’s changed into wine
It seems kind of odd
That God blew his wad
In a time when word of mouth was divine
It’s said that first creatures lacked a spine
Funny our genes most align with the swine
Just like peas in a pod
Together we will plod
On our way to a much better decline
Ooops! Correction to preceding entry
A chap who did wrong by design
Exclaimed, as he snorted a line:
“I feel like a new man –
Forgiving is human,
But erring is simply divine.”
Note from Mad Kane: I deleted your previous version.
A man who taught graphic design,
was charmed by one young lady’s sign,
he was caught by her squiggle,
or was it her wiggle,
or her daring and baring neckline?
A student worked hard to design
his life to be free of cosine;
he never could grapple,
with old Newton’s apple,
let alone a right triangle’s spine.
A woman attempted design,
of a job she could do while supine;
she’s incredibly lazy,
after that it gets hazy,
she’s asleep on her slope of incline.
De Sade had a wicked design;
He strung young girls up in a line.
They whimpered and cried,
But one of them sighed
“I’m a masochist – torture is fine.”
A woman worked hard to design,
a new look for her scruffy canine;
she tied ribbons and bows,
then she Twittered a pose,
in a trice, he got four dates online!!
I once met a man who opined
his service was best when he dined
he wanted his cutlery
polished by butlery
and his china impeccably shined!
A woman tried hard to design
A hammock in which to recline
An impossible task
Given her mammoth arse
She’d no hope of staying supine
The lady in charge did resign
to go off to a lark on the Rhine;
she was slurping the noodles,
and scarfing the strudels,
her caboodle grew out to nicht klein!
If you really believe our Design
Is Intelligent, please observe mine.
When I look in the mirror,
It couldn’t be clearer
My Maker was Doc Frankenstein.
So now we see Putin’s design…
His beady eyes narrow and shine:
“Send bombers! Send tanks!
Send troops on both flanks
(This’ll keep Pussy Riot in line)!”
We workers in graphic design
Have a precept we’d like to enshrine:
Should the customer want
Comic Sans as his font,
We will pickle his noggin in brine.
It was more by good luck than design
That the Universe started to shine.
The Creator, upset,
Dropped a lit cigarette,
And the bang that occurred was divine.
Wagner’s ‘Ring’, an enormous design,
Begins with the gold from the Rhine;
Then hours of Valkyrie
And Siegfried, so dreary
That even the Gods must decline.
Oh if only I could design
A means to store summer sunshine
For those cold wintry days
When we’re missing those rays
I’d be sitting on a goldmine
A woman tried hard to design
A weekly limerick-off, on line
‘Mad’, some might say
But success came Kane’s way
Posts aplenty (and one of them’s mine)!
Fukushima needs help with design:
See, the “-SHIMA” fell off of their sign,
And some extra space grew
Twixt the “FUK” and the “U”
(Though TEPCO insists it’s just fine).
It’s either the cosmic design,
Or a terrible talent of mine,
But whenever I choose
From a number of queues,
It’s always the slow-moving line.
A fellow’s in graphic design;
To be truthful, it’s just a sideline.
With all of his groaning
And bitching and moaning
He’s a leading producer of whine.
LaPierre, aiming low by design,
Plugs “ideals” he hopes fools will enshrine;
Hear his fear-trigg’ring rant,
You’ll forget that you can’t
Defend “freedom” by FALLING IN LINE.
Johanna:
Republicans have a design
For this country that’s grim and malign:
“Anyone can have fun
Shooting kids with a gun…
But we MUST regulate the vagin’!”
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 155.
But you can still have lots of limerick fun because a new Limerick-Off has just begun: Limerick Wheel.
Congrats to the winners upon her
Mad site and on Facebook. An honor
To be in contention
And gain such a mention
Among all who’ve managed to con her… :-)