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!

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52 Responses to “Limerick Design (Limerick-Off Monday)”

  1. Fred Bortz says:

    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.

  2. Brian Allgar says:

    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.

  3. Brian Allgar says:

    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.

  4. Brian Allgar says:

    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.

  5. Brian Allgar says:

    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.”

  6. Brian Allgar says:

    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.

  7. rbasler says:

    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

  8. Judith H. Block says:

    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.

  9. Judith H. Block says:

    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.

  10. John Sardo says:

    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.

  11. John Sardo says:

    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.

  12. Judith H. Block says:

    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.”

  13. Fred Bortz says:

    A scandalous spying design
    Caused President Nixon’s decline.
    His brash overreach
    Cause the House to impeach
    And led Tricky Dick to resign.

  14. Fred Bortz says:

    A scandalous spying design
    Led to President Nixon’s decline.
    His brash overreach
    Caused the House to impeach
    And led Tricky Dick to resign.

  15. Brian Allgar says:

    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.”

  16. Mark Kane says:

    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.

  17. Brian Allgar says:

    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.”

  18. scott says:

    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

  19. scott says:

    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

  20. Brian Allgar says:

    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.

  21. Brian Allgar says:

    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.

  22. Rich Diakun says:

    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

  23. Jon Gearhart says:

    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!!

  24. Jon Gearhart says:

    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

  25. Tim James says:

    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?

  26. Quinn Shands says:

    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

  27. Brian Allgar says:

    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.

  28. Brian Allgar says:

    [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.

  29. yt cai says:

    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

  30. Brian Allgar says:

    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.

  31. Sallie McKenna says:

    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?

  32. Sallie McKenna says:

    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.

  33. Sallie McKenna says:

    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.

  34. Brian Allgar says:

    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.”

  35. Sallie McKenna says:

    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!!

  36. Sallie McKenna says:

    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!

  37. Val Fish says:

    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

  38. Sallie McKenna says:

    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!

  39. 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.

  40. 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)!”

  41. 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.

  42. Brian Allgar says:

    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.

  43. Brian Allgar says:

    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.

  44. Val Fish says:

    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

  45. Val Fish says:

    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)!

  46. 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).

  47. 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.

  48. Tim James says:

    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.

  49. Johanna Richmond says:

    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.

  50. 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’!”

  51. madkane says:

    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.

  52. Jon Gearhart says:

    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… :-)