Tag Archives: limerick

From Bed to Verse

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Post 2,313

28th January 2021

As usual, nothing of importance to relate. I woke while it was still half-dark and had to look at my phone for a time check. The clocks went forward in the night so we lost an hour and I can no longer tell the time by the degree of light outside.

Temperatures have dropped from yesterday, it is windy and there are flecks of rain on the window. From what I remember of setting up my WordPress account it would be called something like “Standard Autumn”  or even  “Just Grey”.

All the normal things happened, the ones I normally filter out of my daily posts – trouser troubles, stiff knees, feeling the gaps when I brush my teeth.

I found myself thinking about prostates this morning. It’s my age. part of me says that I really ought to have a serious conversation with a doctor. Part of me says that I do not want to be part of any conversation that occurs whilst I have my back turned to a stranger wearing rubber gloves. Even worse, a conversation with someone I know, who is wearing rubber gloves.

That led me on to Richard Mabey. When I was last in male urology I was in the middle of reading one of his books and Clare Pooley suggested another of his books when I was convalescing. He ended up in male urology at one point and used the experience to write about water, internal and external, in a a philosophical manner. I used the experience to complain about the NHS, including sandwiches made with white bread and two cancelled operations. I seem to lack the spiritual dimension needed to be a great nature writer. I could, however, have had a lucrative and fulfilling career as a management consultant in the NHS if my life had turned out differently. Or as John Lewis-Stempel. I wouldn’t mind being John Lewis-Stempel.

This is an interesting thought but not one I’m going to dwell on as i have things to do. Poems don’t write themselves, and, as yet, there is no such thing as self-spreading marmalade. That would be a great advance – no more balancing knives and pots on corners of my desk where papers and pill packets haven’t spread. No more juggling, no more sticky patches on the desk, or fluff on toast.

I must make a note of that. But first I must write poems. I am feeling in a very Limerick mood.

A Suffolk blogger called Pooley,
has a name that rhymes with Gilhooley.
It could have been worse,
in this sort of verse,
it often ends up rhymed with…

…that probably needs a bit of work. It may also not work for Americans as I am not sure. I just checked the dictionary and things got even more confused. On top of that, and following the nature writer theme, I find there is a man called Tristan Gooley. Words fail me. And that is not a common occurrence. And this was going to be such a subtle ending…

 

A Limerick for Lavinia

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In a moment of optimism I said, a few days ago, that I would write a poem about Lavinia’s plague of voles. So I had a look at the rhyming dictionary and the list of poetic forms and, to be honest, recoiled in horror. I was thinking of including daffodils but several of the rhymes I was offered (Battle of Bunker Hill and oral contraceptive pill) betrayed a basic lack of understanding about the sort of poems that might include daffodils. Wordsworth never had these problems.

You may recall my discussion about krumholz as a rhyme for vole a couple of days ago.

Well, there is one poetic form I can think of that can accommodate all sorts of poetic horrors (no, not the clerihew, things aren’t that bad) – it’s the limerick – the world’s favourite poem.

An Oregon farmer named Ross
suffered fires, tempests and frost
plus a great plague of voles
all digging their holes
till the cats came to show them who’s boss

For other works in this series see here, here, here and here. And here. Oh, and here. I didn’t realise I’d done so many. I certainly didn’t realise that some of them were so excruciating. I may have to do a collected limericks post, and add some about Boris. I just need a rhyme for farce…

Just in case you get confused, there are two about the well known Mainer, to accommodate both ways of saying scone – the one that rhymes with gone, and the wrong one.

A Limerick (2)

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It has just been brought to my attention in the previous post, by John, of John’s Postcards that a large number of people mispronounce the word scone. It’s not their fault. They have clearly been badly counselled at some time in the past and have failed to correct the error. It doesn’t make them bad people, just misguided, and I decided to write a limerick for them too.

A Mainer, who is quite well known,

noted winter had been knocked from its throne.

She’d grown tired of muffins

and decided that nothing

could compare to a Great British scone.

It’s wrong, and I probably shouldn’t encourage them in their heresy, but in the end I like scones for the way they taste, not how they sound.

 

A Limerick

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It grew from a comment Laurie made on my post about scones/muffins. I woke up just after six this morning and wrote a couple of drafts then finished it this evening. It’s not perfect but it will do to spread a little light cheeriness and fill my need for a post a day.

 

A Mainer, who was seldom wrong,

noted winter was nearly all gone.

She’d grown tired of muffins

and decided that nothing

could compare to a Great British scone.

And a Third Limerick

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I came close to using a Clerihew for Tootlepedal’s Festive Limerick but as I wrote Limericks about Derrick J Knight and the ladies I thought it was only fair to produce a third Limerick.

Originally I tried to force “Tootlepedal” into a line but I couldn’t. I’ve never been good at the metrical part of poetry but even I can tell it’s not a good word for a Limerick.

There was a Scots cyclist called Tootlepedal

(If you get this to scan, take a medal)

If only I dare shorten it to Tootle I could get him to pootle, but it’s probably safer not to do that. So that was how I left it.

I looked at several sites for help with scansion, and it wasn’t time wasted as it revealed that the Ancient Greeks believed a metrical foot should have an arsis and a thesis. (Plural arses and theses, honestly!) It’s not complicated humour, but let’s face it, I’m a simple man and I’m grinning as I type.

A little inventiveness and adaptation later I came up with this version.

A keen Scots cyclist called Tom,

cycles around with aplomb.

If he was Tommy,

it would rhyme with bonhomie,

which would be funny. But wrong.

I think this probably signals the end of my Limerick Season for this year. It’s a lot harder than writing Clerihews.

Another Limerick

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Another Limerick? I’m spoiling you with all this culture aren’t I?

This one is devoted to the people behind two of our most prolific bloggers – Jackie and Mrs Tootlepedal.

The juicy jalfrezi of Jackie,

The toffee pudding of Mrs TP,

are both justly famous

and you cannot blame us

for wanting an invite to tea.

I’m still struggling to fit Tootlepedal into a poem. I can get the rhyme but I can’t get it to scan. I may have to resort to crafty manipulation.

A Limerick

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I’m starting the day with a Limerick. It’s one of two I have in mind, featuring well-known WordPressers who have exchanged poetry with me in the last few weeks.

As ever, I call it poetry but offer no opinion as to the quality.

 

A white-haired curmudgeon named Knight,

Found his trousers had grown rather tight.

He ate so much Jalfrezi,

Which he covered in gravy,

That he will never again be quite light.

 

I tried to fit bahji in, but settled for gravy – less accurate but it seemed to fit better. All us artists have to compromise at some point…

There will be at least one more Limerick today – watch this space!

Political Limericks and Other Poems

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Warning, this post may include tedium. This is particularly true for overseas readers who may not recognise any of the names.

I was intending to write some political limericks last week, but haven’t been firing on all cylinders after being ill. A limerick, with five lines, two rhymes (AABBA) and anapestic meter is trickier than it looks. Even when my brain is replete with fish and purring like a sardine-stuffed cat, questions of metre have a tendency to take the shine off my day.

The answer I adopted, in line with my normal policy of lowering standards to match results, is to cut out all the difficult bits. That would suggest a clerihew, a form often used to make fun of famous figures. The rhymes are easy (AABB) and it has a sensibly easy-going view of line length and metre.

Theresa May

Gave a poll lead away

She lost her majority

and offended her sorority

or

Jeremy Corbyn

Rhymes with next to nothin’

A beardy, weirdy smarty

Who leads the Labour party

To be fair, I’m not sure how smart he is. As long as it isn’t libellous (and I’m pretty sure that accusing politicians of intelligence is not defamatory) I think I’m in the clear as accuracy doesn’t seem too important in clerihews.

Nicola Salmon

Has a tendency to bang on

About places north of the border

That sound a bit like Mordor

Other parties are available, but I can’t remember the names of any of the leaders.

I then had a look at senryu. They are like haiku but without the rules –  no cutting words, no season words and no nature. Seventeen syllables or less. You can include humour and human foibles. They are almost the limerick of Japanese poetry and, apart from throwing a selection of words on the table to see what happens, there can’t be many easier ways to write a poem.

Ripples of applause

A political speech

The sound of lyres

Sorry, it’s a cheap shot but I couldn’t resist.

As for my comment on throwing a selection of words on the table, there is a poet who does that at workshops. I forget her name but she was on Radio Four a couple of weeks ago when it was National Poetry Day. She travels the world with a big bag of words running poetry workshops in a career that makes professional cuddler look almost mainstream.

 

 

 

 

A yolk about eggs

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We collected the eggs today, not that there were many, as we’ve sent most of the hens to market and it’s the wrong time of year. (Of course, from a chicken’s point of view, it’s always the wrong time of year to go to market).

In fact there were two eggs, and being from bantams, they were both small. One was much smaller than the other. On Monday I weighed three of these eggs and they weighed just over 90 grams, which isn’t much more than one decent egg. In fact I used all three of them in place of the one required for the Grantham Gingerbread.

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This put me in mind of a limerick, (which I altered to match the circumstances).

 

There was a young hen from Devizes,

Whose eggs were two different sizes.

One was so small,

it was no use at all,

But the other won several prizes.