I usually avoid this topic, but dVerse prompted me to write this far-from-funny limerick:
Musical Exile
By Madeleine Begun Kane
How I long to be back in that chair,
Playing symphony music — longhair.
But my oboe career
Was pilfered, I fear—
Tearful exile by injuries’ snare.
In its latest Thursday Think Tank, Poets United prompts our muses with the word “strings.” It struck a chord with me, inspiring this limerick tale of an unstrung cellist:
Last-String Limerick
By Madeleine Begun Kane
“That conductor has strung me along,”
Said a cellist. “He’s doing me wrong.
He promised first chair,
But instead I’m nowhere:
Stuck in back, the last stand, near the gong.”
(Related Limericks: Musical Chairs; Musical Faux Pas; and Musical Discord.)
Symphony of black,
my uniform for decades —
stage no longer mine.
*****
Harmonics converge
in a dissonant parade
of the marching bands.
*****
(Thanks for the uniform prompt.)
I hope you’ll join me in writing a limerick with this first line:
A symphony cellist named Kate…
Here’s the limerick I wrote with that line. (It’s a two-verser, but a standard one-verse limerick is fine, of course.)
Musical Chairs
By Madeleine Begun Kane
A symphony cellist named Kate
Shares her stand with a man, once her mate.
Though they play well in sync,
She thinks him a fink
And longs for his move out of state.
But orchestra jobs are quite rare,
And he can’t find a gig on a dare.
Sadly, neither can she,
So together they’ll be
Making music. At least she’s first chair.
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 in my Limerick-Offs.
Musical Discord
By Madeleine Begun Kane
“Your playing is way out of tune,”
The conductor informed the bassoon.
“All your high notes are sharp,
And I don’t mean to carp,
But you sound like a horny baboon”.
The bassoonist replied, “Sir, your ear
Gets progressively worse ev’ry year,
And your cues are all wrong,
So we just play along
And pretend your baton waving’s clear.”
(Orchestrated in response to these play, sharp, and simile challenges.)
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.
