Dip Your Toes In Limericks (Limerick-Off Monday)
Twas the night before Christmas
And all through the house
Our Menorah was glowing
And so was my mouse.
A new Lim’rick-Off posting
Was due in a flash:
My virtual gift
For your holiday bash.
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 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’d stepped on some toes…*
or
A woman who’d stepped on some toes…*
*(Minor variations to my first lines are acceptable, but rhyme words may not be altered.)
Here’s my limerick:
Dip Your Toes In Limericks
By Madeleine Begun Kane
A fellow who’d stepped on some toes
Was concerned about threats from two foes.
Far from being his fans,
They had murderous plans.
But instead, both his foes decompose.
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!
Tags: Enemies Humor, Limerick Contest, Poetry & Prompts, Threats Limerick, Writing Prompts
A fellow who’d stepped on some toes,
Confessed to his spouse of his woes,
“They think I aint sweet,
But I just got big feet!”
“Oh, yes! And a really big nose!”
Hi, Madeleine! From another non-Xmas observer online in the middle of the night…
Here’s a snark-of-the-moment entry from me, if for no other reason than to further expose Jim Sensenbrenner as the insensitive dolt I know him so well to be. (I don’t know if current event commentary is one of your favored limerick components, but it enhances the fun for me, and is why I’ve enjoyed my brief stint so far with the SI.)
Although I admit that this idea may have even better zing in the Purple Cow parody format that I posted earlier on the SI Devotees page (which I’ll stick in at the bottom here*, just in case you somehow missed it), it may also hit the mark as a limerick. That’s for you to decide!
A fellow who’d stepped on her toes
Got this note from Michelle: “So it goes.
I may have a big a**,
But at least I have class.
Rather HAVE than to BE one of those.”
Chag Sameach and Happy New Year,
Nan
* Original iteration, per Pat Myers’s query as to how Michelle Obama should respond to Sensenbrenner’s (forced) apology:
“You think I have a big fat a**?
You know one when you see one?
At least, dear sir, I have some class:
I’d rather HAVE than BE one.”
A fellow who’d stepped on some toes,
For killing the now extinct crows.
Got feathered and tarred,
But they left a nice card.
After they took all his clothes.
A fellow who stepped on some toes
Just shrugged and said, “That’s how it goes.”
Such sangfroid, we feel,
Is the sign of a heel,
And we don’t want too many of those.
A fellow who stepped on some toes
By selling the emperor new clothes
A wee bit too sheer
Remarked with a sneer,
“There was nothing that big to expose.”
A fellow who stepped on some toes
Said, “Sorry, but that’s how it goes.
When my own toes were stepped on
I nonetheless kept on.
‘Grindstone,’ I said, ‘meet my nose.'”
A fellow who stepped on some toes
Got picked on, because of his nose
Despite Rudolph’s whining
His honker kept shining
You could even say that it glows….
A woman who stepped on some toes
Said, “That’s ’cause I’m wearing tight clothes.
I can’t cha-cha-cha
In a size-too-small bra,
And I can’t do-si-do in these hose.”
A fellow who stepped on some toes
Shook his head and confessed, “Heaven knows
I’m clumsy. Repeat:
I have dual left feet,
Yet ballet’s the career that I chose!”
A fellow who’d stepped on some toes
Took a frightful punch in the nose.
The woman he ditched
Took a swing as she bitched.
While the toes swiftly rose to a spot as he froze.
A woman who’d stepped on some toes
Assumed a position of repose
Then to make hearty amends
She did multiple bends
And said honey it’s not just the wind that blows.
Oh, that’s nasty. And on Christmas Day too! Wherever will my soul go.
A fellow who’d stepped on some toes
Received a big punch on the nose.
In business folklore –
As in love, or in war –
Things get bloody, and anything goes.
In rehearsals, they both stepped on toes
But never on film- they were pros
They were so debonair
Rogers and Astaire
The most famous of dancing duos
The two gained world-wide appeal
And their dancing perfection was real
But as Whittlesey said,
She danced backwards instead
And she did so while wearing high heels.
A young bureaucrat stepped on some toes
when some changes he did dare to propose.
He reorganized his wing
then revised every thing
now he sits where had past CEOs.
A writer who stepped on some toes
By writing provocative prose
(By bushels, not smidgens!)
Was Christopher Hitchens.
May his atheist soul find repose.
A woman who’d stepped on some toes,
could get any man to propose.
Cuz’ each self-serving act,
is off-set by the fact,
she can suck a golf ball through a hose.
A fellow who stepped on some toes
tried correcting it all with a rose
But his woman was mad
and the allergies she had
only added to this fellow’s woes.
A fellow who’d stepped on some toes
Regretfully cried, “Heaven knows
That I spent others’ cash
As my personal stash,
But my wife spent my money on clothes.”
Here’s my first thought again, for the record:
A fellow who stepped on her toes
Got this note from Michelle: “So it goes.
I may have a big a**,
But at least I have class.
Rather HAVE than to BE one of those.”
And here’s another, from a different ankle :-) :
A fellow who stepped on some toes
Essayed then his dogs to enclose.
His huge metatarsals
Required two parcels.
Phenomenal feet, I suppose.
A woman who’d stepped on some toes
Recorded the shrieks. Recompose
This tape helps her now:
When she’s down somehow,
She plays it, and blooms like a rose.
A fellow who’d stepped on some toes
Had an ego as big as his nose,
Until one day his bride
Shot a hole in his pride
And told him the sex really blows.
love this,
Merry Christmas…
Cheers.
A fellow who’d stepped on some toes
Tried super hard not to disclose
The steps that he took,
But he was on Facebook,
And so the whole world knows.
A woman who’d stepped on some toes
Was inclined to be quite bellicose.
She liked picking fights,
Standing up for her rights,
And bloodying everyone’s nose.
A fellow who stepped on some toes
Had come back with a bloody nose
That taught him
Not just his whim
To let fly everything that he knows
Madeleine Ma’am,
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year
Hank
A fellow who’d stepped on some toes
Retorted, “How else you suppose
A loser like I
Can ever get by?
Grow up! It is life, and its prose.”
A fellow who’d stepped on some toes
Ran Apple and trampled his foes.
No one cared for his vices
But loved his devices
For which he made everyone pay through the nose.
Said a fellow who’d stepped on some toes,
On his way up the ranks as he rose:
“I was schooled in fair play,
But the villainous way
Is more fun than one might presuppose.”
A fellow who’d stepped on some toes
When competing with ballroom dance pros
Displayed in his jive,
While broadcasting live,
What a slip of the zip might expose.
Some fellows who stepped on some toes,
While drinking and dancing with “Hos”,
Vowed to make it last,
But repeated the past,
As each of them soon came to blows.
A fellow who stepped on your toes,
Your eybrows, your ears, and your nose,
Said, “All that remains
Is to step on your brains.
Too bad you don’t have one of those.”
A fellow who’d stepped on some toes
With his Machiavelli-like prose*
Thought himself quite a prince
And tried to convince
Tea Partiers to defeat his foes.
*To Save America by Newt Gingrich
A woman stepped on Barak’s toes
He whispered as she blushed deeply rose:
“Dance one step to the left,
And you’ll be quite bereft,
Of the crowds that put snags in your hose.”
I just love “his foes decompose” — too funny!
Here’s a little ditty of mine:
a woman who’d stepped on some toes
as to the top job she arose
wears shoes that are spikes
so men she dislikes
have far fewer toes for their woes
Kay, Alberta, Canada
An Unfittie’s Guide to Adventurous Travel
I love your Christmas limerick!
A fellow who stepped on some toes
Ran a scam that I had to expose:
His podiatrist friend
Would then charge lots to mend
Victims’ feet, though they wore crushproof hose.
A suitor once stepped on her toes
At the moment he planned to propose.
She let out such a cuss
That he jumped on a bus,
And where he is now, no one knows.
(BTW, that should have been “crushproof” instead of “Kevlar” in the last line of the first limerick above.)
Store executives stepped on some toes
And brought down a fiasco on Lowe’s
By pulling their ads
from a Muslim show. Gads!
From their blindness a store boycott grows.
A fellow who’d stepped on some toes
made the offer to buy her new hose.
She said, “Take a hike.
You’re not someone I like
and the way that you’re dancing just blows.”
A fellow who stepped on some toes
Got down on one knee to propose.
But, standing behind him,
The lady declined him
With a solid swift kick to his hose.
A fellow who stepped on some toes
and garnered political woes
told more lies and then cheered
when opponents got smeared
while the public got led by the nose.
a fellow who stepped on some toes
learned to just thumb his nose
they’ll always be detractors
and over reactors
as your the light of your star glows
A woman who stepped on some toes
while belting out, “Second Hand Rose,”
would rather be blue
as the greatest star. Nu?
She’s a funny girl, I would suppose.
Here’s my effort–a bit of a cheat!
A fellow who stepped on some toes
Liked to wear very large Dr. Scho’s,
Thought the name ‘breviated
Was the same as truncated,
Not realizing the length of his so’s.
A fellow who stepped on some toes
Had a habit of being verbose
They weren’t averse
To his dabbling in verse
But disliked his voluminous prose
A fellow who stepped on some toes
As he climbed to the top of the rows
Try as he may
The glass ceiling did stay
And he ended up deep in the lows
Hee hee, I so enjoyed “stepped in some toes”…..eek!
I’m a fellow who steps on some toes
When walking sidestep down the rows
Of theaters to pee,
But please, don’t blame me!
This wasn’t the bladder I chose.
A fellow who’d stepped on some toes
Missed the giant whose knees reached his nose
The giant said “Fo Fum
Please lift up your bum
That’s my foot not a seat” so he rose.
A woman who’d stepped on some toes
Found it hard to maintain a cool pose,
When youngsters galore
Got a foot in the door,
Whereas she got veins varicose.
A fellow who’d stepped on some toes
Wore a shoe size no one would suppose.
“Not to get in a fight
I just buy them too tight
But my problem just grows and it grows!”
A fellow who’s stepped on some toes
Fears reprisal wherever he goes
“Real friends sure are few
In the business I do”
He complained (to himself) of his woes.
A fellow still stepping on toes
In his dreams, said “But nobody knows.
I stay friends with all,
Avoid a bad fall,
And yet vent my revenge on my foes!”
A fellow who stepped on some toes
And stomped on their feet as he rose
Up fast through the ranks
Is now president thanks
To the toe-stepping methods he chose.
A fellow who’d stepped on some toes
While attempting an awkward dance pose
Said: “I think it’s disgraceful —
They gave me a face full
Of blows for their toes — my poor nose.”
A fellow who’d stepped on some toes
Lost his job as a dick in plainclothes.
Now he’s walking a beat,
And with tired, flat feet —
He’ll just step on more toes, I suppose.
Mused a fellow who’d stepped on some toes
And been kicked out of so many shows,
“If I had to pick out
“My favorite ♫ “kick-out” ♫ ,
“It would have to be ‘Anything Goes!’ ”
Thanks for all the great ‘kicks’ I got outta Lims-of-the-week in 2011, Mad, and Happy Limerickin’ in 2012 to all your contributors! xxx
A woman who’d stepped on some toes,
Heard a lot more goodbyes than hellos
But she couldn’t care less;
Those she couldn’t finesse
Were just sons of a gun so and so’s.
This one is by my father, Gordon Richmond. He wrote it while visiting last weekend. Hope he’s not writing about me:)
A woman who’d stepped on some toes
By writing her triple X prose
Was sent off to jail
And denied any bail;
Now she lives with the rest of the ho’s.
To his woman who’d stepped on some toes
(A bad habit displayed in the throws),
Bob said, “It might behoove
You at least to remove
The stilettos before your big O’s!”
Said a sultan who’d stepped on some toes,
“In a harem, that’s just how it goes:
With my wives all entangled
A few may get mangled —
It’s best to arrange them in rows.”
A woman who’d stepped on some toes
Went too far and it near came to blows
When she wouldn’t stop bitching
About her man switching
His briefs for lace panties with bows.
A husband who’d stepped on some toes,
Always staying out late with some hos,
Woke to breakfast in bed
And a short note, which read:
Here’s your sausage, I hope it regrows.
Thanks so much everyone for your fun 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 42.
But don’t worry — there’s already a new Limerick-Off challenge afoot, and it has a New Year’s theme. Here it is: Happy New Year Edition — Limerick-Off Monday.