Limericks

Dieses Blog huldigt unter anderem der Kunstgattung Limerick. In willkürlichen Abständen werden hier Limericks veröffentlicht, ausgewählt nach streng subjektiven Kriterien. Manche sind deutsch, die meisten englisch, auf dieser Seite sind sie vollständig versammelt.
Es gibt hier außerdem noch die Vereinsseite des VHMLH, der sich den höheren Weihen der Limerick-Kunst verschrieben hat, dem Meta-Limerick.

There was an old lady in Brooking
who had a great genius for cooking.
She could bake sixty pies,
all quite the same size,
and tell which was which without looking.

Es lebte ein Mann in Holzminden,
der war ein Genie im Erfinden.
Eines Tages erfand
er das Loch ohne Rand.
Ich glaub, das erklärt sein Verschwinden.

There was a young lady called Lynn
who was so uncommonly thin
that when she essayed
to drink lemonade
she slipped through the straw and fell in.

Ich sah einen Anschlag in Princeton:
“Geh hier um die Ecke, da finceton.”
Und als ich ihn fand
gab ich ihm die Hand.
Wir sahen uns an und wir grinceton.

Ein Knabe fiel in Transvaal
in einen Fleischwolf aus Stahl.
Zwar verließ er sofort
gleich wieder den Ort,
jedoch - in größerer Zahl.

A young man while dining at Crewe
fround quite a large mouse in his stew.
Said the waiter: “Don’t shout
or wave it about,
or the rest will be wanting one too.”

There was a young lady of Maine
who was horribly sick on the train.
Not once, I maintain,
but again and again
and again and again and again.

There was a young fellow from Fife
who had a big row with his wife.
He lost half his nose,
two thirds of his toes,
one ear, seven teeth and his life.

There once was a member of Mensa
who was a most excellent fencer.
The sword that he used
was his – (line is refused
and has now been removed by the censor)

There was a young lady from Riga
who rode with a smile on a tiger.
They returned from the ride
with the lady inside
and the smile on the face of the tiger.

It’s a favourite project of mine
a new value of pi to assign.
I would fix it at 3
for it’s simpler, you see,
than 3 point 1 4 1 5 9.

There was an old man of Blackheath
who sat on his set of false teeth.
Said he, with a start:
“Oh Lord, bless my heart,
I’ve bitten myself underneath!”

An anarchist once lived in Ealing,
in explosives the fellow was dealing.
Through a little mishap
he just vanished, poor chap,
but there still are some spots on the ceiling.

To a gentleman entering Heaven
St. Peter said: “Dinner’s at seven,
breakfast at eight,
don’t mind if you’re late,
there’s biscuits and milk at eleven.”

There was an old lady from Skye
who was baked by mistake in a pie.
To the household’s disgust
she emerged through the crust
and exclaimed with a yawn: “Where am I?”

There was a young lady of Datchet
who chopped off her nose with a hatchet.
When her friends asked her why,
she made this reply:
“I’m no longer tempted to scratch it.”

There was a young man in Peru
who found he had nothing to do.
So he sat on a chair
and counted his hair
and found he had seventy-two.

There was a young fellow from France
who waited ten years for his chance.
Then he muffed it.

There was a young lady called Jenny
whose limericks weren’t worth a penny.
Her technique was sound,
but she always found
that when she tried to write any
she’d end up with one line too many.

An impromptu poet of Hibernia
rhymed himself into a hernia.
He became quite adept
at the practice except
for occasional anti-climaxes.

A zoologist’s daughter of Zug
cried: “Papa, what is that on the rug?”
Said he: “Goodness gracious!
How very vexatious!
I very much fear it’s a blood-sucking insect of the cimex lectularius species!”

There was a young man from Peru
whose limericks stopped at line two.

There was a young lady of Ham
who hastily jumped on a tram.
As she swiftly embarked
the conductor remarked:
“Your fare, Miss”. She said: “Yes, I am.”

There was a young woman named Bright
whose speed was much faster than light.
She set out one day
in a relative way
and returned on the previous night.

Es lebte ein Tierfreund in Bebra,
der hielt sich im Keller ein Zebra.
Woselbst es verblich –
zumindest für mich,
denn es gibt keinen Reim mehr auf -ebra.

Einen Missionaren aus Nice
den brieten die Wilden am Spice.
Er sang gottergeben:
„Mitten im Leben…“
Worauf ihn dasselbe verlice.

There was a young man from Darjeeling
who got on a bus bound to Ealing.
It said at the door:
Don’t spit on the floor!
So he carefully spat on the ceiling.

There was a young fellow called Dave
who kept a dead whore in a cave.
He said: I admit
I’m a bit of a shit,
but think of the money I save.

There was an old lady from Hyde
who ate rotten apples and died.
The apples fermented
inside the lamented –
made cider inside her inside.

A flea and a fly in a flue.
Said the fly “Oh what should we do?”
Said the flea “Let us fly.”
Said the fly “Let us flee.”
So they flew through a flaw in the flue.

There’s a wonderful family called Stein:
There’s Gert and there’s Ep and there’s Ein.
Gert’s poems are bunk,
Ep’s statues are junk,
and no one can understand Ein.

A cat in despondency sighed
and resolved to commit suicide.
She passed under the wheels
of eight automobiles
and after the ninth one she died.

There was an old man in Peru
who dreamed he was eating his shoe.
He woke up with a fright
in the middle of night
and found it was actually true.

An exceedingly fat friend of mine,
when asked at what hour he’d dine,
replied: „At eleven,
At three, five, and seven,
And eight and a quarter past nine.”

There was a young man who said: Why
can’t I look in my ear with my eye?
I think I can do it
if I put my mind to it.
You never can say till you try!

There was an old party of Lyme
who married three wives at one time.
When they asked, “Why the third?”
he said, “One is absurd,
And bigamy, sir, is a crime.”

Although at the limericks of Lear
we may feel a temptation to sneer,
we should never forget
that we owe him a debt
for his work as the first pioneer.

The limerick is really quite hard
for many an amateur bard.
For supposing they can
get the meter to scan
they still need to rhyme that last word.

A crusader’s wife left the garrison
and had an affair with a Saracen.
She was not over-sexed,
or jealous, or vexed.
She just wanted to make a comparison.

A pansy who lived in Khartoum
took a lesbian up to his room.
They argued all night
as to who had the right
to do what and with which and to whom.

The limerick’s birth is unclear.
Its genesis owed much to Lear.
It started as clean
but soon went obscene,
and this split haunts its later career.

There was a young girl from Rabat,
who had triplets, Nat, Pat and Tat.
It was fun in the breeding
but hell in the feeding,
for she found she had no tit for Tat.

There was a young lady of Flint
who had a most horrible squint.
She could scan the whole sky
with her left-handed eye
while the other was reading small print.

A cardiac patient named Fred
made a limerick up in his head.
But before he had time
to write down the last line

There was an old man of Calcutta
who spoke with a terrible stutter.
At breakfast he said:
“Give me b-b-b-bread
and b-b-b-b-b-b-butter.”

“For the tenth time, dull Daphnis”, said Chloe.
“You have told me my bosom is snoe
and made pretty verse on
each part of my person -
now do something, won’t you, my boe?”

T.S. Eliot was quite at a loss
when clubwomen bustled across
at literary teas,
crying: “What, if you please,
did you mean by The Mill on the Floss?”

A limerick fan from Australia
regarded his work as a failure.
His verses were fine
until the fourth line.

A newspaper poet for Hearst,
deprived of his reason
by uncontrolled sneezing,
was by phantasal demons coerced
to write all of his limericks reversed.

There was a young poet quite fine
whose limericks repeated a line.
Though this was redundant,
though this was redundant,
his limericks repeated a line.

There was an old man
from Peru whose lim’ricks all
look’d like haiku. He

Said with a laugh: I
cut them in half, the pay is
much better for two.

There once was a vampire named Mable,
whose periods were really quite stable.
And every full moon
she’d get out a spoon
and drink herself under the table.

There once was a [person] from [place]
whose [body part] was [special case].
When [event] would occur,
it would cause [him or her]
to violate [law of time/space].

A verb invited a noun over to dine,
and they shared a fine bottle of wine.
The verb couldn’t wait,
he said, “Let’s conjugate!”
But sadly the noun did decline.

There once was a small juicy orange
…fuck.

There once was a lady from Trent
whose nose was most horribly bent.
One day, I suppose,
she followed her nose
and nobody knows where she went.

There once was a fellow in Kent
whose dong was so long that it bent.
To save himself trouble
he put it in double
and instead of coming he went.

There once was a man named Eugene
who invented a screwing machine.
Concave and convex,
it served either sex,
and played with itself in between.

A scholarly fellow from Duckingham
wrote a treatise on women and fucking them.
He was beat by a Turk
who wrote a twelve volume work
on cunts and the fine art of sucking them.

A young man whose sight was myopic
Thought sex an incredible topic.
So poor were his eyes,
That despite its great size,
His penis appeared microscopic.

An architect fellow named Yoric
can, when he’s feeling euphoric,
provide for selection
three types of erection:
Corinthian, Ionic, and Doric.

There was a young maid from Aberystwyth,
who took grain to the mill to make grist with.
The miller’s son, Jack,
threw her flat on her back
and united the organs they pissed with.

There was a young man from Kildare
who was fucking a girl on a stair.
The banister broke,
but he doubled his stroke,
and he finished her off in mid-air.

There was a young lady from Dee
whose hymen was split into three.
So when she was diddled
the middle string fiddled
“Nearer my God to Thee.”

There once was a poet named Todd
whose meter was seriously flawed.
His limericks would tend
to come to an end
suddenly.

Es spürte ein Dichter aus Erlangen
nach falscher Betonung ein Verlangen.
Da rief man: „Ach Bert,
du bist bescheuert!“
Da ist ihm das Verlangen vergangen.