Limerick Wheel (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 man was asleep at the wheel…*
or
A woman was trying to wheel…*
or
A fellow was turning the wheel…*
*(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 Wheel
By Madeleine Begun Kane
A man was asleep at the wheel–
Not driving, but doing a deal,
And by failing to spar
While buying a car,
He fell prey to the dealership’s spiel.
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 man was asleep at the wheel
For the road though he had a good feel
He meant to hit Natches,
was conscious, in patches,
And found himself down in Mobile
It’s a funny thing – a wheel.
Sometimes it hardly seems real.
All life goes around
and all that you’ve found –
is it’s a funny thing – a wheel.
HEY, PAT AND VANNA!
I imagine me spinning that wheel
And my bonus round win is a ‘steel’
Proving word games I play
aren’t time wasters when they
help me win a new automobile.
She’s driving, then he takes the wheel.
They switch again after each meal.
Las Vegas their goal!
They’re now on a roll.
Shared driving’s their deal, or no deal.
A woman was trying to wheel…
On piecemeal basis a concocted deal
She had partners
Who were dishonest
It got botched for they had squealed
Hank
A woman was turning the wheel,
Saving her sweet automobile
From potholes galore,
But then there were more.
She hit one the shade did conceal.
A woman was trying to wheel
And deal, yet her motives conceal.
She’d win the ultimate prize,
Cut her cruel boss down to size
And get him before her to kneel.
A cave man invented the wheel
He hoped to get rich off the deal
“I only require
“The right name for my tire
“This will be a good year now, I feel…”
When Ogg first invented the wheel,
It had very little appeal.
But a night spent in passion
Inspired him to fashion
An axle–Now that’s a big deal!
A man fell asleep at the wheel
Too many carbs at his last meal.
He caught himself fast,
And he was agast.
He’ll have to stay more even keel.
My gerbil loves running his wheel
He runs with great joy and great zeal.
He has great fun,
Then he is done.
He’s too big to do a cartwheel.
A teen got behind the wheel.
For driving he showed a great zeal.
But there was just one factor,
it was his dad’s tractor
and you can’t go that fast in a field.
(Not the most perfect of rhymes, but oh well).
Here are two submissions: one with a political spin.
A man was asleep at the wheel
For eight years in the White House, for real.
He dreamed of ambition
Which came to fruition
Dismantling our rights with much zeal.
A man was asleep a the wheel
As the guardrail his fender did feel;
The snooze he did catch
Was really no match
For the scratch on his automobile.
A man was asleep at the wheel,
careening wildly toward the Bastille;
he awoke from his trance,
Said “Mon Dieu, I’m in France!”,
“At least, I can have some great veal!”

A woman was trying to wheel,
a blockbuster big money deal;
she was ready to close,
but her Power Point froze,
her pitch lost its whole spiel appeal.
A fellow had turned on his heel,
walked out of her life and vowed he’ll,
take the last of her money,
her house and her bunny,
she injected,”It’s doubtful you’ll heal!’
A man played asleep at the wheel
His passenger’s leg for to feel
As she said for God’s sake,
Will you step on the brake
Pull over for drinks, that’s the deal.
A man fell asleep at the wheel
While approaching the pier, in Lucille
His beautiful yacht;
He awoke with a WHAT!
Broken ashore, how’s that feel?
A man was asleep in Mobile,
in a booth of the diner “Big Wheel”;
he dreamed he was stuck,
in a suck hole of muck,
he’d slumped over full-faced in oatmeal!
A woman behind the wheel
Was knitting while driving through Deal
Half way to Dover
Cops said pullover
She said no, cashmere jumper, just feel
The croupier was spinning the wheel,
And the waitress was hot, I could feel.
Though I fancied my chances,
She spurned my advances:
“Double zero, you loser – get real!”
A woman was changing the wheel
When a fellow appeared, full of zeal.
“May I help you?” he said,
But she bashed in his head
And made off with his automobile.
The Cardinal, quite a big wheel,
Had a dog before whom he would kneel.
He explained to some geezers
The pooch was called Jesus –
“When called, he will come straight to heal.”
They say that the galaxies wheel,
But frankly, I think it’s a spiel.
I’m convinced that the planet
‘s a huge pomegranate –
The stars are just holes in the peel.
Come live with me, love, and then we’ll
All pleasures indulge; thou shalt kneel
Where I’m hung like an ox,
Then you’ll sit on my rocks …
Say, waddaya mean, “You’re a heel”?
The man who invented the wheel
Couldn’t get the idea to congeal.
“The concept is there”,
Said his wife, “But a square?
It needs to be rounder, I feel.”
Scientology gained a big wheel
When Tom Cruise declared “Hey, it is real!”
But his fans were less certain
And pulled down the curtain,
Complaining he lacked sects’ appeal.
The glutton inspected his wheel
Of cheese, saying sadly “This Brie’ll
Suffice for a snack,
But I’ll have to go back
And get three for a regular meal.”
Said Cromwell, “The General Weal
Hath need of me now to reveal
That the Nation grows greedy –
Pray think of the needy”,
And munched on a shoulder of veal.
“You shouldn’t say ‘us’ll’, but ‘we’ll’ ”,
The Harvard boy tells us – big deal!
Old rednecks like us,
Why, us don’t give a cuss.
’Cause it’s us’ll get richer than he’ll.
Torquemada invented a wheel
That caused all his victims to squeal
As their feet fell apart,
But he told them, “Take heart,
For compared to a soul, what’s a heel?”
The contestants would spin the big wheel,
Then Vanna turned cards to reveal
Some quite obvious phrase.
‘Twould _er_lex and amaze!
I never could gras_ the a_ _eal.
There should be two consecutive hyphens in the last word of my limerick above, of course. I think the blog software must have merged them.
Note from Mad Kane: I don’t think you really want hypens but, rather, underscores on both lines 4 and 5.
I’ve made that change. Please let me know if it’s what you wanted.
Wheeling Around The Dance Floor
(after William Dunbar)
“Mahoun” wore a coat, like a “quheill,”
Hung in “rumpillis” clear down to his “heill”
At the party he threw
For some folks (me and you);
Seven times “air of Hell” – a raw deal.
Though the man who invented the wheel
Must’ve thought it a very big deal,
It’s the far lesser toiler
Who tacked on a spoiler
That first got the cavemen to squeal.
SOME RANDOM SOUNDS
While Willow winds wool on her wheel,
Max munches his mid-morning meal
‘Til his belly (its bib
Like a billowing jib)
Is as full as a fellow can feel.
The Government tends to our weal…
Yet too many Conservatives feel
That our *weal* is a welt
That deserves to be dealt
By the force of a down-treading heel.
A man let his son take the wheel
To teach him to hunt for his meal
He said with a laugh
When they struck a calf,
“That’s not what I meant to re-veal!!”
Caught in flagrante behind the wheel
A couple could hardly conceal
Their state of undress
They couldn’t care less
In their open-top automobile!
Broken down and behind the wheel
He decided to have a quick feel
His girlfriend he pawed
With tongue he explored
Is that what you call a ‘Happy Meal’?
When my teenage son takes the wheel
The only emotion I feel
Is fear, ’cause I know
He doesn’t go slow.
I cringe when I hear tires squeal.
Order “piel de banane en huile
De foie de morue” for your meal
And prepare to recoil —
For it’s cod liver oil
And banana (but only the peel).
The laughing gulls circle and wheel
Where I stand with my rod and my reel.
But mine’s the last laughter:
It’s GULLS that I’m after,
And soon will be filling my creel.
Stuck in traffic, his hands left the wheel
In his pockets for Kleenex to feel.
PC Plod—such a swine!
Gave an on-the-spot fine!
It was felt to be excessive zeal …
A true story from Scotland. Feeling a sneeze coming on, a motorist reached for a handkerchief. Despite being stationary in a traffic jam and having applied the handbrake to his car, he was issued with an on-the-spot fine and three points on his driving licence by a beady-eyed police officer (nicknamed “PC Shiny Buttons” for his over-zealous approach to his job) for supposedly not being in “proper control of his vehicle”. The man refused to pay the fine and the case was dropped.
“Only one hand, his left, gripped the wheel,
Your Honour, it’s scarcely ideal.”
(Went the policemanly drone)
“He was using his phone
With the other,”—and so went his spiel.
Dost thou turn in thy grave, Robert Peel?
Didst thou hear of a case so surreal?
The defendant was calm.
His prosthetic right arm
Meant his hand couldn’t grip, nor yet feel.
Sadly, another true story from Scotland in this morning’s Daily Record (“The Wrong Arm of the Law”). A man was taken to court after two police officers declared they saw him using a mobile phone in his right hand while steering the car with his left, despite the man having a false right arm with a rigid hand that means he cannot hold a phone, let alone use it in any way.
A man went to sleep at the wheel
And what happened next was unreal
Cause all in a flash
He had a bad crash
Cut his legs off and now he’s called Neil.
Oh he’d squeal as he’d take to the wheel,
Enjoying his new sex appeal.
His Ferrari was HOT!
Sadly he was so not,
But most starlets seemed willing to deal.
It’s quiz time! So let’s spin the wheel!
When you see all these prizes you’ll squeal!
There’s cash you can bank!
So—birthplace of Planck
Of quantum mechanics? Yes—Kiel!
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 156.
But you can still have lots of limerick fun because a new Limerick-Off has just begun: Undone Limerick.
Now that spring has sprung
Every bird has a song to be sung
Not a minute to wait
Build a nest find a mate
And sing fit to burst a lung
The batsman said he was done
My innings of a hundred and one
Should win the match
But shame that catch
Means I won’t score the winning run