Limerick-Off Monday – Rhyme Word: MAZE or MAIZE or AMAZE at the end of Line 1 or 2 or 5
It’s Limerick-Off time, once again. And that means I write a limerick, and you write your own, using the same rhyme word. Then you post your limerick as a comment to this post and, if you’re a Facebook user, on Facebook too.
I hope you’ll join me in writing a limerick using either MAZE or MAIZE or AMAZE at the end of Line 1 or Line 2 or Line 5. (Homonyms or homophones are fine.)
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 10:00 p.m. (Eastern Time.)
Here’s my limerick:
A lady felt trapped in a maze
Cuz her job was confusing, and praise
From her boss rarely came.
(He was lib’ral with blame.)
Her malady? Workplace malaise.
Please feel free to write your own limerick using the same rhyme word 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
“I hate corn!” grumbles Willie. He prays
That he won’t have to eat it for days.
But in Ciudad Madero
He shouts, “Placentero! —
“It’s maize? I’m amazed!” proclaims Mays.
There are many and various ways
Of pronouncing two side-by-side “A’s”.
A conductor named Lorin
Was always implorin’:
“My last name starts ‘Maahs’ and not ‘Mays’.”
(With respect to the late, great conductor Lorin Maazel.)
A man once spent most of his days
Meandering, running all ways
Appearing forlorn
Zucchini and corn
Entrapped him in a mainly maize maze.
“How I love them! Let’s count all the ways”,
Cried the mistrel, reviewing his lays.
“Though there’s doggy with Misha
And mish with Patricia,
The sweetest of blowjobs is May’s.”
To survive the political maze,
There are rules for these decadent days:
Just keep cheating and lying,
Vote-selling and buying –
In politics, crime always pays.
My horse simply never obeys.
Though I offer him tidbits of maize,
Sugar lumps and molasses,
Sweet apples and grasses,
I never get yeas, only neighs.
Her trick never failed to amaze;
She had learnt to give head for three days
Sucking dick after dick,
Never once getting sick,
Though her eyes sometimes tended to glaze.
“This natural food’s just a craze”,
Says Monsanto. “We’ve bought the okays,
And our (paid) study shows
That you won’t get six toes
From genetically-modified maize.”
But with time, the results would amaze,
And the Chief of Monsanto now prays.
Since their pesticide lingers,
He’s grown eight more fingers,
Plus three where the sun shines no rays.
(I see that Adam is continuing the longstanding tradition of musical limericks that began last week …)
For purists, it often dismays
That ‘The Threepenny Opera’ still plays.
They believe Bertolt Brecht
And Kurt Weill simply wrecked
The original opera, John Gay’s. *
* The Beggar’s Opera.
Mother Goose had a prurient phase,
Writing lim’ricks that Mad Kane would praise.
The best made you horny
(Though punny and corny)
Like “Little Boy Blue in the Maize.”
It will never cease to amaze
How the public’s reaction dismays.
So easy to dupe
With political poop.
Zonked out in sugar-fueled haze.
I wander in erudite daze
Navigating a cerebral maze
Be learned and clever.
Get sublime word. Whatever.
And hope that I will get just praise.
A labyrinth is not a maze
It’s meant as a path, not to faze
Just walk the route
To be more astute
And be in a more pensive phase.
The pols are all trapped in a maze
Of deception, that nothing will faze
All truth’s gone awry
Gives US a black eye
It seems that buffoonery pays.
She was trapped in a sexual maze.
It put her in a deep malaise
She wanted respect
But they groped and necked
It seemed all they’d want was good lays.
My new cook’s from Tijuana. For days
He’s been serving up platters and trays
Of fried dough (that’s a “churro”)
With butter (or, “burro”),
And cream of corn (“crema de maíz”).
(For fans of the “Pink Panther” films)
When the cue-stick laid waste to the baize
Ballon’s eyebrows did not a jot raise.
By that point he was so
Used to dimwit Clouseau
That his denseness had ceased to amaze.
His words never cease to amaze,
He will always find the right phrase.
Though sometimes I fumble;
Instead of walk, stumble.
He’s there with encouraging praise.
The size of his cock did amaze,
It made her quite speechless, in praise.
Glee she had to renege
Cause he was too big-
She ended up bow-legged for days.
Carmen’s passion aroused Don José’s;
Maddalena, Andrea Chénier’s.
But Aida! She slipped
Herself into the crypt
Where she died with her beau, Radamès.
The editor has many ways
To shorten some terms. He’ll amaze
Folks with what he can do.
The result: Just a few
Words that mean the same. He’ll pare a phrase.
He embarked on a dieting craze.
The results never ceased to amaze.
When he stepped on the scale,
Loss of weight he would hail.
It was clear he was changing his weighs.
Speculation on oil does amaze.
Prices fluctuate during the craze.
When you joke, it is lewd
If the subject is crude.
It’s a soar spot to many these days.
English language puts people in a daze
Because homonyms baffle and amaze.
Here is just one example;
There are others quite ample.
The word raise is the antonym of raze.
There were several dumb blondes in the days
When most sitcoms were piles of clichés,
But for IQ in limbo
(Put otherwise: “bimbo”),
It’s hard to transcend Elly May’s.
It never ceases to amaze
How folk park in disabled bays
When they’re fighting fit
And don’t give a shit
They should be ashamed of their ways
The good thing about going through this maze,
Is to be able to sample the maize.
But, I got off track,
Now, the day turned black,
So, I guess I’ll be here for some days.
A cow on a farm would not graze,
Because a horse on the farm was in a rage.
When the cow grazed left,
The horse took a step,
So, the cow went in search of some maize.
The chef took some ears of maize,
And he placed them all neatly on trays.
When he reached for the butter,
He saw too much clutter,
So, he said, I’ll just top them with glaze.
Betty Graham was really stuck in her ways,
When she grew her nice tasty maize.
She used a special fertilizer,
And watered it with budweiser,
And she sprinkled them all with lays.
As I looked out the window in a daze,
I saw a spaceship, a meteor, and two greys.
As I took a closer look,
The two greys began to cook,
A potpourri of potatoes, string beans, and some maize.
Writing a limerick’s always a maze
Like growing trees in bonsai trays
One prunes and nips
And wires the tips
Hoping to trigger the “Aha!” gaze
I was caught in a circular maze
With a rat whose name was Blaise
We had nothing to do
So we had some brew
And BLTs with mayonnaise
I’d love if my limericks amaze
And are able to gain Mad Kane’s praise
We’re all bravely battlin’
To impress Madeleine
Will I win? One of these days.
To me, it won’t cease to amaze
How a priest’s not policed for his ways
When he buggers boys’ butts?
Reassignment. That’s nuts
And the priest, he still preaches, and preys.
May McCray has created a craze.
But although May’s maize maze may amaze,
Rose’s rose rows once rose
Where the maize maze now grows,
And they’ll raze the maze one of these days.
That one’s gonna be tough to beat, Will.
Oh, the gall of those feigning amaze-
Ment (the jerks that solicited lays
On the Madison site).
This guy says, serves ’em right,
And suggests, on their vests, scarlet A’s.
Strip poker last Friday at May’s!
She’s a beauty in so many ways:
Flawless skin, head to toe.
You ask: how do I know?
Her full house couldn’t beat my four treys.
In a third-world health clinic, the craze
Was for natural childbirth. Delays
In arrivals of those
Who knew how the term goes
Meant Lamaze to the mas was Lamāze.
The maize farmer’s hoping for lays
’Mongst the chicks who get lost in his maze
But a mad Martian jerk’ll
Append a crop circle
And have his strange way with the strays.
whenever I’m caught in a maze
of beauties, I know where to gaze
it’s right at my wife
I value my life
and want to see my golden days
(This one’s lacking in taste, and betrays
My affection for dark turns-of-phrase.)
Joan of Arc didn’t get
Any last cigarette,
But she smoked nonetheless — quelle fumaise!
If Rachmaninov sets you ablaze
It’s a cinch you are caught in the maze
Of his flights virtuoso,
And moods doloroso,
And copious Dies iraes.
Of the Cole Porter songs, “Night and Day’s”
An exemplar that warrants all praise.
What? You don’t know it yet?
Quickly — run out and get
A recording (perhaps Mel Tormé’s)!
TRAPPED!
On the farm midst the early fall haze,
Near the fields where you watched cattle graze,
Your meandering walks
‘Tween the towering stalks
Can’t escape the amazing maize maze.
I didn’t see Will’s amazing maize maze equivalent before I posted mine. His wins for sure!
Pity Spooner his lifelong malaise
(Mangling even the most basic phrase).
I’ve a deep-seated hunch
If a sandwich were lunch,
He might specify, “No nayommaise.”
It’s summertime, I love to laze
By the pool on a plastic strap chaise
Longue hours I oft lay there
With fat on display there
From nibbling those chips made of maize.
When my old eyes upon a gal gaze
And I ask, “How about a few lays?”
Even if she says, “Yes,”
Once she’s out of her dress
There’s a diff’rence between ‘cans’ and ‘mays.’
It’s a known fact that horses can’t graze
Whenever they’re hooked up to shays
But once they’re unbridled
You may find they’ve sidled
Right up to a manger of maize.
Fred, my first entry had a maize maze, and was an acrostic, and I still have a fact’s chance at Fox News of actually winning. I don’t know how I’m supposed to top Will’s entry. That was an impressive five-liner.
Then again, Mad’s taste has surprised us all before. Even aside from Will’s verse, this week’s submissions have been of mostly high quality. Like yours.
Oh well, the challenge makes it more fun, and us better limerick writers, I say.
PS. And like you, I even used the word “meandering”.
On election day, Canada prays
Our PM, Harper, no longer stays
But Trudeau and Mulcair
Are full of hot air
The irrelevant Green Party’s May’s.*
*Elizabeth May leads Canada’s Green Party. The other three names I mentioned are the only ones with a realistic chance of winning, and the NDP’s Tom Mulcair, imo, seems to me the least objectionable candidate. The election will be held on October 19, 2015. Latest I’ve heard, all three of the candidates were polling above 30%. It’ll be a close one.
At my stop for the last few days
I’ve experienced long delays
I believe the fuss is
They’ve routed the buses
To go via Hampton Court Maize
To Kim Davis: It should not amaze
You your job is in trouble these days
For you’d license, if straight
But you’re so full of hate
That you won’t license marriage for gays.
Kim Davis is the clerk from Rowan County, Kentucky that is refusing to issue marriage licenses to homosexuals in violation of federal law. The courts have told her specifically to do her job but she still refuses.
She’s been divorced three times. Jesus had more to say about divorce than about homosexuality (none). She’s a hypocrite and no one should buy her victim act.
Drugged-up suspects ne’er cease to amaze
Even after police have to tase
Them to get them subdued
They’re combative and rude
Acting crazed in their meth-induced daze.
Dear David, I couldn’t agree more. Another case of hatred and ignorance hiding behind a smokescreen of “values” (a misnomer if ever there was one).
I don’t understand why she can’t just be relieved of her duties and replaced by someone who will actually do the job.
(See my update below.)
David (and Adam) it’s Kentucky, which means that her bosses probably support her egregious bigoted stance.
And the federal court has no legal right to punish her by firing her. But the fed court can jail her for contempt, which is what was done today. (She won’t be released unless she agrees to follow the law.)
So unless a higher court reverses the contempt order, which seems highly unlikely to me, she’ll stay there until she caves or resigns.
And call me a cynic, if you must, but it wouldn’t shock me if she resigned, and then ran for higher office, bragging about her anti-gay behavior … and won.
UPDATE: Since she’s an elected Kentucky official, it appears that the only way to remove her would be by impeachment by the legislature, which is currently out of session.
For poor Dr Spooner, each phrase
Was a labyrinth certain to faze.
As he said, “Though it’s rummy –
My dung is a tummy –
I’m gradually wending my maze”
Here’s my problem; it’s bound to *m*ze:
In my elegy, modelled on Grey’s,
The letters just sped
From my pen, B to Z,
But I never could write down the *’s.
Mozart’s output was one to amaze;
Though still young at the end of his days,
And approaching defeat
In making ends meet,
He left more than 600K’s. *
(Mozart’s works were catalogued by Ludwig Ritter von Köchel, and go up to K626 (the Requiem).
“This dodecaphonical maze”,
Said Stravinsky, “Is only a craze.”
But when Schoenberg died,
Igor serially tried,
Though “The Firebird” ’s the one that still plays.
(And, of course, The Rite of Spring, Petruchka, and many others – but when did you last hear one of his serial compositions?)
J. Edgar would persecute gays
For their foul unamerican ways.
But despite all his mockings,
He’d wear bras and stockings,
A perv in his own sexual maze.
Err … Adam, I liked your Joan of Arc, but I don’t think there’s any such word as ‘fumaise’!
Dear Brian, Oh, there absolutely isn’t! It’s a coined word, combining the French verb “fumer” (to smoke) with a feminine suffix. Its English equivalent might be ” smokette”. It was done absolutely tongue-in-cheek, like William S. Gilbert’s rhyming of “alive” and “”conservative” (long “I” in the latter to force the rhyme) in “Iolanthe”. And you’ll be relieved to know that the word received the blessings of a French instructor. (Hey, are you ratting me out to get me disqualified??) Best regards, Adam
Oh, and per your Stravinsky question: the last time was when Michael Tilson Thomas led a performance of “Threni” at, of all places, Hollywood Bowl in the early 1980s. The conservative musical populace LOVED it…!
[Modified version of one a few posts back]
For poor Dr Spooner, each phrase
Was a labyrinth. Lost in its ways,
He would say: “Though it’s rummy –
My dung is a tummy –
I’m gradually wending my maze”
(Written with a smile and with no malice aforethought!)
I infer some contestants aren’t bonded
By propriety. Look at what one did:
It appears that, no sooner
Had I evoked Spooner,
Another rushed in and absconded!
Phyllis Sterling Smith writes:
Even Superman has his down days
Without actions to praise or amaze,
No telephone booth
To change clothes in — uncouth!
And you know there are no other ways.
This from Phyllis Sterling Smith:
There are folks that I’d like to amaze
By my age, 94, and this phase:
I lie in my bed.
Oh the books I have read!
And for old person’s diapers give praise.
From Phyllis Sterling Smith:
When a distant star started to quase
Filippenko ran outside to gaze.
All astronomers hope
For a high telescope
When the stars are all set to amaze.
Phyllis Sterling Smith sends this:
My little pet rat, Ethel Hays,
Disappeared for a number of days.
She returned in the Fall
Fat and round as a ball
Having eaten through acres of maize.
The carnie weight-guesses amaze,
But forgiveness he seeks and he prays.
When he cheats on his guesses,
He most sadly confesses,
“I regret the errors of my weighs.”
The cannibals roasted some maize
And prepared a nice sauce Hollandaise.
Then a rival tribe’s chief
Got thrown in as the beef.
It’s a worthy opponent they braise.
A naughtier version of an earlier post:
Strip poker last Friday at May’s!
She’s a beauty in so many ways:
Lovely breasts, nice neat bush
And a firm, curvy tush.
This I know ’cause I drew to four treys.
Dear Tim, Years ago, New York magazine had word-game competitions, not dissimilar to that which you and I are currently playing, except that the rules would change with every new contest. In one instance the editors requested the following: a riddle with the answer first and the question second (cf. Johnny Carson’s “Carnac”), with the answer a famous phrase or title with one letter altered. My entry was:
A: “Let us now braise famous men.”
Q: What did the cannibals say when they found the survivors of the downed V.I.P. plane?
…and, more to the present point, they once asked for limericks that summed up the plot of a play, novel, movie, etc. One contestant (I wish I remembered her/his name, let alone that I had written this) sent in the following:
Don Giovanni, attempting to score
With Number One Thousand and Four,
Shakes hands with the gory
Stone Commendatore
And falls through a trap in the floor.
For Adam (and Tim): I just Googled that Don Giovanni limerick and found it here: Paul Bickart.
By the way, New York Magazine (online at least) has revived its contest, which now runs bi-weekly. Unfortunately, it’s a pale imitation of its former self.
Great sleuthing! Thanks, Mad.
Adam, I know the word “fumer”. I live in France, and I’m sorry to say that I smoke my head off – well, not yet literally. If I failed to recognize that “fumaise” was a joke it’s no doubt because – as my best friends will tell you – I’m severely humour-challenged. I could make Sarah Palin look like a laugh a minute.
Dear Brian, I seriously doubt your humor-challenged status, based on your entries! I enjoy your contributions immensely. I quit cigarettes cold turkey back in 1989 (I was a pack-a-day unfiltered Lucky Strike smoker until then) and have never gone back. For all our sakes, might you consider the same? Also, what’s the French take on Sarah Palin? As Jerry Lewis has a legendary French following, I can only imagine the howls SHE elicits over there. Best regards, Adam
P.S. to Adam.
Concerning the serial Stravinksy: 1980’s? I rest my case. (Actually, there are a couple of pieces that I quite like, but they are definitely minor Stravisnky.) And as for Spooner, if you look back over the last couple of years, you may find that you’re not the first to invoke his nameful shame.
Dear Brian, True confession: I don’t care for very much of Stravinsky’s post-“Symphony of Psalms” output. The first opera I ever conducted was “The Rake’s Progress”, as our school chose to mount it in my final year of college; I didn’t like it then and still don’t these many years later. (How I wish Britten had been blessed with setting that wonderful Auden/Kallman libretto!) Best regards, Adam
Magicians are there to amaze
And leave you just wond’ring for days
How gals cut in two
Don’t die, but make you
Praise the ways of today’s crazed displays.
Our digestive tract is a maze
A labyrinth worthy of praise
What starts out as food
Ends different when pooed
Our bodies have magical ways.
This edible plant we call maize
Is known more as corn nowadays
So what’s in a word?
Is a stool just a turd?
Are we slaves to synonomous phrase?
To Brian (and Adam) My Limerick-Off contest has been running for so long, that it’s rare that I see a pun or other type of wordplay that hasn’t appeared in at least one other limerick submission over the years.
I’m not talking about plagiarism, of course. Though if something sounds unduly familiar, I search my archives to make sure there’s no deliberate or inadvertent copying. I’ve only found one instance so far, and I was persuaded that it was in fact inadvertent.
The ways that an animal sprays
Seem endlessly made to amaze
An elephant’s trunk
A cat and a skunk
That’s what Mother Nature displays
(I never get bored of her ways)
Political issues – a maze
Designed to leave you in a daze
Debates never end
And seem to intend
To reach even the dark alleyways.
Cats are blacks, whites, striped, calicos, grays
Dogs’ colors can also amaze
But even if umber
They’re too great in number
Blest be the pet owner who spays.
In the States, being of “good stock’s” high praise,
And “fine broths” are great guys from the braes.
If this soup correlation
Extends to the nation
Of France, have they “bons consomm锑s?
Adam —
Perhaps a soupçon of them..
(I’ve only seen ‘brothers’ abbreviated as ‘bros’ but I suppose that’s what you were going for with ‘broths.’)
Dear Phil, No, what you see is correct — there’s an old Scottish expression, “He’s a fine broth of a lad” (hence the reference to braes). I was going for the natural progression of stock — broth — consommé. Best regards, Adam
From Robert Louis Stevenson’s “The Master of Ballantrae” (a Scottish novel):
“Oh! the divil fetch him,” says I. “He would be glad to know how I come in a garden, would he? Well, now, my dear man, just have the civility to tell the Sahib, with my kind love, that we are two soldiers here whom he never met and never heard of, but the cipaye is a broth of a boy, and I am a broth of a boy myself; and if we don’t get a full meal of meat, and a turban, and slippers, and the value of a gold mohur in small change as a matter of convenience, bedad, my friend, I could lay my finger on a garden where there is going to be trouble.”
Yes, I wondered why you had placed them on the auld sod.
As I hang around Mad’s site, I learn LOTS from you, Brian, Will, and a host of others whose knowledge seems to know no bounds.
Here are a few I’ve done on things Scottish:
Scottish haggis, I’ve heard, is delicious
Surely those who say so are facetious
Sheep’s heart, lungs and liver
Plus oats makes me quiver
And cooked in his stomach? Sounds vicious.
An elderly Scot named McPhee
Could no longer easily pee
This was pre-Avodart
But he found if he’d fart
It would start up his stream and bring glee!
A battle-worn Scotsman named Doonoch,
For a shirt wears a loose-fitting tunic.
‘Neath his kilt nothing swings
For he’s missing his “things”,
A mortar shell made him a eunuch.
And this one, while not original, is an all-time favorite:
Q. What’s the difference between Mick Jagger and a Scotsman?
A. Mick says, “Hey, you, get offa my cloud” and the Scot says, “Hey, McLeod! Get offa my ewe!”
One of my favorite things Scottish:
When I was in college, the theater department did a production of Macbeth. My actor friends told me that the poor chap in the titular lead was a nervous wreck at having been assigned so monumental a role, and was jittery as hell at rehearsals. It became a joke amongst his actor colleagues that he’d be doing his big Act V soliloquy, and say:
“‘ — To-morrow, and to-morrow, and…’– Line!”
…Is a Scottish nudist an off-kilter?
That was a tart ‘un!
No doubt he had a checkered past.
…and possibly a lot of plaid-tonic relationships as a result.
A man who was very well built,
Was naked except for his kilt.
He was flouting the regs,
As he flaunted his legs,
And willed certain parts not to wilt.
Rather than taking up Mad’s webspace with my Scottish puns and limericks, how about Hibernia a CD?
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 and the Honorable Mention Winners: Limerick of the Week 229.
But you can still have lots of limerick fun because a new Limerick-Off has just begun: Limerick-Off Vain..