I sure hope your Memorial Day weekend weather’s better than ours, here in New York.
Beached Plans (Limerick)
By Madeleine Begun Kane
Though Memorial Day is upon us,
Winter clothing continues to don us.
So I plead and beseech:
Kindly stop talking “beach.”
New York media’s trying to con us.
Limerick Ode To Olympic Beach Volleyball
By Madeleine Begun Kane
Watch those barely clad women play ball
On the beach, keeping viewers in thrall,
Gals hoping to volley
Olympic wins. Golly!
I’m surprised they wear clothing at all.
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 right before I post next week’s Limerick-Off. So that gives you a full week to submit your clever, polished verse.
I hope you’ll join me in writing a limerick with this first line:
A woman was putting on airs…*
or
A fellow was putting on airs…*
*(Minor variations to my first lines are acceptable, but rhyme words may not be altered.)
Here’s my limerick:
Limerick Airs
By Madeleine Begun Kane
A woman was putting on airs
And attracting a whole lot of stares.
She puffed and she preened,
Till from warnings she gleaned
That behind her were lurking three bears.
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!
Poetic Asides prompts us to write poems about camping. As you can see, I’m not exactly a roughing-it kind of gal:
Camp-Free Limerick
By Madeleine Begun Kane
I’m reluctant to rough it outside.
I need comforts a house can provide.
I’m too timid to camp,
But at home I’m a champ
Where mosquitoes can’t feast on my hide.
Update: August 20 is World Mosquito Day.
The hot dog throwing incident almost made me feel sorry for Tiger Woods. Of course, if Tiger Woods sang Italian opera, it would have been fruit.
Limerick Ode To Hot Dog Heckling
By Madeleine Begun kane
An inventive new golf misdemeanor
Is attack Tiger Woods with a wiener.
Yes, a hot dog was thrown
And a frank critique shown.
It could have been worse: Orangina?
A month or so ago, hubby Mark took a wonderful photo of a deer just a couple of feet from our deck in Putnam Valley, New York. I’ve finally written a companion limerick for that image:
Dear Deer
By Madeleine Begun Kane
Dear deer, you’re adorable, true.
But there’s one thing about you, I rue:
Your habit of munching
And supping and lunching
On fruit my hub’s hoping to chew.
In late March I wrote some verse about our squirrel problem. More specifically, a squirrel that likes snoozing in my upstairs window sill under the AC.
As you can tell from my tanka and limerick, the brazen squirrel refused to be scared off. Sure, it would leave for a while. But just when I thought my squirrel was gone for good, there she was again in my window sill, kept outside only by a thin piece of plexiglass.
Well, guess who had babies:
Methinks it’s time for another squirrely limerick:
Squirrely Limerick
By Madeleine Begun Kane
A squirrel gave birth on my sill—
Near my window AC unit’s grill.
Each miniscule pup
(Five in all — two floors up)
Born an inch from my nose — chilling thrill.
Thanks to hubby Mark for snapping that photo.
UPDATE: Happy Squirrel Appreciation Day, January 21st!
Heated Limerick
By Madeleine Begun Kane
Nasty heat wave, I beg you, please cease
Cuz we need your high temps to decrease.
I don’t mean to complain,
But this weather’s a pain.
So stop it already! Capice?
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. (You can even post it here on Google+ if you’d like to.)
The best submission will be crowned Limerick Of The Week. (Here’s last week’s Limerick Of The Week Winner plus the Honorable Mentions.)
How will your poems be judged? By meter, rhyme, and cleverness. (If you’re feeling a bit fuzzy about limerick writing rules, you can find some helpful resources listed here.)
I’ll announce the Limerick of the Week Winner right before I post next week’s Limerick-Off. So that gives you a full week to submit your clever, polished verse.
I hope you’ll join me in writing a limerick with this first line:
A fellow who loved a good thrill…
or
A woman who loved a good thrill…
Here’s mine:
Thrilling Limerick
By Madeleine Begun Kane
A fellow who loved a good thrill
Went skiing and took a bad spill.
His wife said “Enough!
I don’t care that you’re tough.
You’d better start writing your will.”
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 send me an email requesting the alerts. You’ll find my email address on the upper right sidebar, in the “Author” section just below my Limerick-Offs button. Thanks!
I just found out that this week (May 1 through May 7) is National Pet Week. So I thought I’d celebrate with a canine limerick:
A Limerick About Nothing
By Madeleine Begun Kane
A fellow who owned a pet dog
Took him out for a walk in the fog.
Soon the man and his hound
Were back home safe and sound,
Where he wrote up their walk on his blog.
UPDATE: Happy “Walking The Dog Day.” (February 22)
Nervous newcomer
slips and falls onto deep snow.
Makes bad impression.
*****
Valiant croci
strain to push through snow’s surface.
All retreat but one.
*****
My tossed-aside snow
returns to the cleared sidewalk.
An icy revenge.
(The first haiku is for the Haiku Heights impression prompt and the second one is for I Saw Sunday.)
Who needs to join a gym when you own a home in New York and experience … pardon my French … winter! Cardio? Check. Muscle building? Check. Seriously, there’s nothing quite like lifting a snow-packed shovel way over my head in my quest for a place to dump the damn stuff. I’m talking mountains of snow, some of it still lingering from December.
That brings me to my wintry mix of limericks:
I Need A Landlord, STAT
By Madeleine Begun Kane
While owning a home can be nice,
It isn’t all sugar and spice:
After snow and ice falls
There’s no landlord for calls
About shov’ling. That’s part of the price.
Lamentable Weather
By Madeleine Begun Kane
I know that it sounds like I’m wailing,
But it’s thund’ring and lightening and hailing.
It was snowing all day.
Now an ice storm? Okay,
It’s official. Can’t take it. I’m bailing.
Queens Unplowed (Limerick)
By Madeleine Begun Kane
We’re in Bayside — no sign of a plow.
So our streets remain hazardous now.
The snow storm’s long done,
Yet no plow trucks. Not one!
Has Queens been neglected? And how!
Update: Here’s my haiku on the same subject:
Neglected Queens streets
Piled with snow and slick with ice.
Residents frosted.
Update 2 Yet another related haiku:
Manhattan tourists
Ask why Times Square looks so good:
Snow was shipped to Queens.
(More Queens blizzard and snow removal and Mayor Bloomberg stories and more snow verse here.)
Mark and I are looking forward to the next heavy rain storm, since we don’t dare hope for a multi-day thaw. And until one or the other happens here in New York City, we won’t be able to use our back door (which opens out) or get into our yard.
My two-verse limerick explains all:
Who Needs A Door, Anyway?
By Madeleine Begun Kane
Can’t exit our house from the back,
Cuz the door’s blocked by snowdrifts, alack!
We would shovel it free
If we could, but you see
We’ve no route to that snow we can track.
For the trail to that door’s through the yard.
And clearing that path’s more than hard.
For the yard gate is blocked
From inside, as if locked
By still more snow. Our entry is barred.
My post about haiku and senryu put me in the mood to write more haiku. And what better inspiration than this morning’s extremely rare total lunar eclipse/winter solstice combo!
It’s very cold here in New York. But as my husband sleeps, I’ve been outside watching the eclipse, coming indoors periodically to write some lunar eclipse haiku — a total of seven for a total eclipse:
Here they are:
The lunar eclipse
Is just beginning right now.
Moon’s barely dented.
Bundled up, yet chilled,
I watch moon’s vanishing act.
Quarter’s gone missing.
Icy New York air
Mocks me as I moon eclipse.
Glad cops missed my show.
Ventured out again
As solstice moon wastes away,
Mere shadow of self.
Winds howl in protest,
Demanding that the shy moon
Come out of hiding.
The sky teases us
With a hint of yawning light,
As moon awakens.
Moon stages comeback.
Turns out its retirement
Was only a phase.
If you’re reading this, you probably enjoy limerick challenges. So I wanted to make sure you knew about Patrick McGuire’s weekly Unfinished Limerick Contests.
Essentially, Patrick provides part of a limerick — anywhere from two to four lines — and asks you to finish it. And he even declares an actual winner.
They’re lots of fun, and I’m pleased to report that I just won his 24th contest. In that poetry challenge, Patrick provided the first two lines and I added the last three. Here’s the resulting limerick:
I am not really much of a prude
And on other folks’ joys don’t intrude.
No, I’d never play god,
But this one thing seems odd:
Why do folks with bad bods sunbathe nude?
UPDATE: I’m guessing these people have an extra good time on National Nude Day, celebrated each year on July 14th.
Rumor has it that fall will arrive on September 23rd. So I thought I’d celebrate with my Limerick Ode To Autumn:
Limerick Ode To Autumn
By Madeleine Begun Kane
Feels like autumn — the walking is easy
Cuz it’s cool and it’s dry and it’s breezy.
But what do I spy?
Flying pollen — oh my!
Any minute I’ll surely be sneezy.
Thursday night’s weather was certainly interesting here in Queens, New York. Hubby Mark and I were on the Long Island Railroad on route to an Off-Broadway play, when what turned out to be a tornado hit.
After some delays, our train did manage to make it to Penn Station, after which the railroad completely shut down, stranding hordes of rush hour commuters. (As we later learned, the tracks were littered with uprooted trees, and the storm had wreaked havoc throughout much of New York City.)
But we went off to see the play, figuring that by the time we were finished with theater and dinner, everything would be back to normal. Ha!
As it turned out, more than 24 hours would elapse before the LIRR would fully recover. So our path home to Bayside, Queens was a challenge, involving an unfamiliar combo of train, subway, and bus.
Relieved to finally be home, we were greeted by an unwelcome discovery — the tallest tree in our backyard had relocated to our neighbor’s yard.
Well, at least the play wasn’t bad — It Must Be Him, starring Peter Scolari and Liz Torres. Not great mind you — not even close. But everything’s relative.
TV weather reporters in the New York metropolitan area had a wonderful time last week, warning us about Hurricane Earl and all the rain that was surely coming our way. They gave us “teaser” reports early in the news shows, making us wait, as usual, for forecasts that turned out to be wrong.
We had hurricane watches and warnings galore … but no actual rain. In short, New York City weather predictions were a washout.
Weathering Those Weather Reports (Limerick)
By Madeleine Begun Kane
Why use weather reports as your guide?
I really don’t mean to be snide,
But they tend to be wrong
And they take way too long.
Want a forecast that’s right? Go outside.
Mad Kane (Madeleine Begun Kane) is a writer, musician, and "recovering lawyer." She won the Robert Benchley Society Award For Humor and enjoys writing limericks, song parodies, and current events haiku.
You can email her at madkane@madkane.com, visit her political humor blog, or stop by her home page.
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