Limerick Bar (Limerick-Off Monday)
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 next Sunday, right before I post next week’s Limerick-Off. So that gives you a full week to submit your clever, polished verse. Your submission deadline is Saturday at 11:59 p.m. (Eastern Time.)
I hope you’ll join me in writing a limerick with this first line:
A fellow who worked at a bar…*
or
A woman was holding a bar…*
or
A woman decided to bar…*
or
A dancer who stretched at the barre…*
*(Please note that minor variations to my first lines are acceptable. However, rhyme words may not be altered, except by using homonyms or homophones.)
Here’s my limerick:
Limerick Bar
By Madeleine Begun Kane
A woman decided to bar
Cigarette smoking folks from her car.
“This must be a joke,”
Said her husband. “I smoke,
So our marriage ain’t going too far.”
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!
Tags: Car & Driving Humor, Cigarettes, Competition Limerick, Husband Wife Limerick, Limerick Challenge, Limerick Contest, Marriage Limerick, Poetry & Prompts, Smoking Bans, Smoking Humor, Writing Prompts
The woman who danced on the bar
Never thought she was going too far
She did a cartwheel, a
Few shots of tequila,
And told some “blue” jokes, hardy-har!
A fellow who worked at a bar
Told a punter: “The way that things are
Moral grounds there are firmer
For referring to ‘Burma’
Not the noxious regime’s ‘Myanmar’.”
A fellow who worked at a bar
Was tempted—safe door left ajar!
This has the makings
Of crime! With the takings
He fled to the hot Côte d’Ivoire.
A fellow who worked at a bar
Held a quiz night—they flocked from afar!
But the brave teams of drinkers
Found the questions were stinkers!
There was no-one that night crowned Quiz Tsar.
A woman was called to the Bar
(In gown and wig—ain’t that bizarre?)
She sought tax repayment
For her subfusc court raiment
It was close, but she got no cigar!
A true story: Mallalieu v Drummond [1983]
A fellow who worked at a bar
Claimed: “Of all the Scotch whiskies, by far
The best come from Islay—
A seaweed-y taste, while a
Lingering note’s left of coal tar.”
[NB: “Islay” is pronounced “EYE-luh”]
A woman was holding a bar
Over “Girls’ Night Out” slotted clay jar
At slow extraction she scoffed!
Raised her weapon aloft
Scattered piggy bank contents afar!
A fellow took lunch at the bar
At his hotel in Doha, Qatar.
He’d brought the wrong money
(Dull story; not funny)
They have the riyal, not dinar.
A dancer who stretched at the barre
Dreamt of audiences shouting “Huzzah”!
In Paris! Milan!
But via Kazakhstan
The troupe went to Ulaanbaatar.
A dancer who stretched at the barre
Was in La Sylphide due to star
But while in fouetté en l’air
She crashed on her derrière
Which bid to her hopes au revoir.
This rabbi walks into a bar
With a priest and a golden sitar
Barmaid hands him a Coke
And says, “So? What’s the joke?”
Rabbi says, “Can we use your pissoir?”
A fellow who worked at a bar
Served drinks to a Hollywood star.
He was struck by her beauty
Performed acrobatically his duty
In the back of a foreign sports car.
A woman decided to bar
Sex habits she knew were bizarre.
It was quirky for sure
But she’d always adore
Getting laid in the seat of her car.
A woman was holding a bar
Fixing four flats on her car.
They were caused by commotion
From heated devotion
Making love to a wacky guitar.
A dancer who stretched at the barre
Envisioned herself as a star
She saw her plans stop
When a tendon went “pop”
To her dreams she now said, “au revoir.”
So this fella walks into a bar …
(The most common joke intro, by far)
But the bar in this case
Hit him square in the face.
And left him a quite bizarre scar.
A fellow who worked at a bar
Heard stories, mundane and bizarre.
He would listen well
To the tales they would tell
Perhaps he should write a memoir.
A fella who tended a bar
kept some odd things in a jar
“This was bat,
and this was a cat,
and her I found in a Jaguar”
A player came up to the bar
remembering the days of Cigar
“My God, he could go,
sixteen in a row,
when racing so needed a star!”
A horse, he walked into a bar
The tender said “hardy har har!
Whenever I toke,
it seems some old joke
shows up and plugs in his guitar”
A guy looked real glum at a bar
his wife did it with a golf star
but she came back mad
and said she was had
cuz Tiger said “this hole is par”
While dancing the low limbo bar
the intern bent back way too far
she twisted her back
and exposed her crack
The ex-Prez said “close, no cigar”
While playing tonight in a bar
a birthday jam for Ringo Starr
It didn’t take long
before “No No Song”
and “.. Easy” were played on guitar.
A rabbi walks into a bar
With a priest and an old commissar
A Hindu, of course,
Plus a man on a horse–
Damn! there goes my whole repertoire.
An Arab walked up to the bar
Saying “Give me a big long cigar
I much prefer biggies
Coz I cannot smoke ciggies
They just give me too much Qatar”.
“I am telling you, Brother Jabbar,
As a terrorist you will go far.
Simply put on this vest,
We’ll take care of the rest.”
They found bits of Jabbar in Qatar.
A lawyer was banned from the bar
For taking his lying too far.
But no need to fret,
His career’s surely set:
In Congress this man’s bound to star.
There once in L.A. was a bar,
With a pianist who’d later go far.
This inspired a song,
Which we all sing along.
This Piano Man’s surely a star.
So yo’ mama walked in to a bar
Just to hear a guy play the guitar.
But yo’ mama so fat
That the chair that she sat
On got stuck, and won’t fit in her car.
A pirate walked into a bar,
After pillaging towns near and far.
“Are you here for a raid?”
Asked a buxom barmaid.
“Nay me wench,” he said, “Just arrr and arrr.”
You’ve spent too much time in this bar:
Please give me the keys to your car.
Though I know you may think
You’re not sozzled with drink,
These pink elephants say that you are.
Poor Han, in the Tatooine bar,
Left the door of the rest room ajar.
Thus a bar-ful of Wookiees
Heard Han hoof his cookiees,
Which left an emotional scar…
(Well, THAT was a nice build-up to Nothing Much:
I may have to lower the bar
Of my limerick standards. So far,
I don’t mind admittin’
The ones that I’ve written
Have none of ’em been up to par.)
This young fellow, though called to the bar,
As an advocate isn’t a star.
In the courtroom he stands,
In his wig and his bands,
While his clients wear feathers and tar.
A young girl went into a bar
Intending to catch a young tar
But the sailor said “Love
I just hafta shove
And you’ve nothing to put in a bra”
A guy met a gal in a bar.
As they stripped in the back of his car,
He asked for direction:
“Do I need protection?”
“No sir,” she said, “come as you are.”
A sailor rolled into a bar,
“Macadam, but just call me Tar!”!
The crowd gave a jeer,
“No puns allowed here!
“So be on the road, har, har, har!”
Madeleine, I’m still giggling at your limerick. I haven’t written one ever…though my father had about a million and would pull out the most incredibly dirty ones…a lot had to do with a gal from Nantucket. :) I’ll have to try crafting one of these. The sing-song rhythm has always fascinated me.
A young man did chat at the bar
With a pretty young girl called Pilar
“Well you must be from Spain
With your lovely black mane
But you should leave the bull in your car”.
A fellow who worked at a bar
Come in covered in tar
He had won a date
took the bait
But ended up fixing her car
To Craig
Well I chatted to Brother Jab-bar
(Bits of whom later found in Qatar)
And I said I was shattered
His remains would be scattered
And I’d preserve his nuts in a jar.
A Russian walked into a bar
And claimed that his dad was the Czar.
But no one would weep
For this forlorn sad creep
But wept for the U. S. S. R.
Tom Arnold married Rosanne Barr
No surprise that it did not go far
the anthem she’d botch
by grabbing her crotch
With a voice that bangled our star
An oenophile at a Country Club bar
Ordered a vintage Pinot Noir
he was fresh out of luck
when served 2 Buck Chuck
Sour grapes for the course are now par
A gymnast who worked the high bar
Felt his prospects had plummeted far
After performing some flips
Using mixed dorsal grips
There was more of an Ooh than an Ah!
A fisherman sailed past the bar
In his dory that still bore the scar
Of that ill fated day
When his catch got away–
A humpback the size of a car.
I sit still as they lowered the bar
Firmly locking me into the car
Of a ride straight to hell
(I’m so scared I can’t yell).
Farewell world, this is it, au revoir!
A woman had come to the bar
To hear a young man on guitar.
As he sang through her life,
All her troubles and strife,
He strummed through her pain–every scar.
A pirate who worked at a bar
Tried hard to learn Spanish guitar,
But could ne’er sing along
With an Español song:
The corsair could not roll his “Arrrr!”
This took a little on-line research:
“Davy Crockett, he kilt him a bar.”
Recall that? That tells me you’re far
From that callow faced young ‘un
Who long ago sung in
A coonskin cap. Yessir, you are!
You watched on TV while he strode,
Heroically treading that road
From the Tennessee hills
And the bar that he kills
To the day that he gets Alamo-ed.*
Fess Parker’s star power was strong,
And we knew every verse of that song
‘Bout the frontier so wild
And the bar-killin’ child
And the land we salute loud and long.
Buddy Ebsen, his sidekick so true,
I’m sure you remember him, too.
Though he later struck oil
From a shot in the soil,
Is he Clampett or Russel to you?
San Antonio Texans all cheer
That you know Davy Crockett died here,
And their restaurant code
Calls for Pie AlaMode
To be served with each Mexican beer.
So I ask, “Is this story so far
Fair-to-middlin’ or far above par?”
It’s the best I can do
When the limerick clue
Is the three-letter word, B-A-R.
FOR THOSE WHOSE NOSTALGIA WAS PIQUED (but with a little adjustment–kilt him a bar is cleaned up, alas):
Born on a mountain top in Tennessee,
Greenest state in the land of the free.
Raised in the woods so’s he knew every tree,
Killed him a bear when he was only three.
Davy, Davy Crockett King of the Wild Frontier.
He fought single handed through the Injun war,
Till the Creeks was whipped and peace was restored.
And while he was handling this risky chore,
Made himself a legend, forevermore.
Davy, Davy Crockett the man who don’t know fear.
When he lost his love, and his grief was gall,
In his heart he wanted to leave it all,
And lose himself in the forest tall,
But he answered instead, his country’s call.
Davy, Davy Crockett, the choice of the whole frontier
He went off to Congress and served a spell
Fixin’ up the government and laws as well.
Took over Washington, so we hear tell,
And patched up the crack in the Liberty Bell.
Davy, Davy Crockett, seein’ his duty clear. (Serving his country well)
When he come home, his politickin’ done,
The western march had just begun.
So he packed his gear, and his trusty gun
And lit out a grinnin’ to follow the sun.
Davy, Davy Crockett, Leadin the Pioneers.
His land is biggest, and his land is best
From grassy plains to the mountain crest
He’s ahead of us all in meeting the test
Followin’ his legend right into the West
Davy, Davy Crockett, King of the Wide Frontier
King of the Wild Frontier.
source: http://www.lyricsondemand.com/
Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txcRQedoEyY
In Boston girls work in a bahh
One put on a new Wonderbrahh
The fellas stared attah
But it didn’t mattah
She knew that’s just how fellas ahh.
The weatherman said isobars
Showed pressure out by the stars
this reporting disgrace
stems from deep space
Knowing climate comes from Quasars
While on the road to Zanzibar
Bob, Bing and Dorothy Lamour
things got scary
there on safari
In the jungles of Madagascar
A damsel was scrabbling to bar
The advance of a man with a scar.
She had knocked out a C
And wedged in a T
When along came a man with a star.
n Persia I stood in a bar
In vain hope of meeting the Shah
A girl showed me her belly saying
“My name is Nelly”
I said “I’m not dreaming . You are!”
A woman decided to bar
Her lover from driving her car
She said “Look here Englebert
You’re not wearing my skirt
This really is going too far! “
The bugle blew eight to the bar.
For the Army, so clearly bizarre.
But she sang of this guy,
With a wink, oh so sly.
Bette Midler, a singular star.
A fellow who stood for the bar
stole an answer sheet left in a drawer
Since not yet admitted
He felt sure he’d committed
No infraction of any DR.
Okay– kind of a lawyers’ limerick, Mad. I’m sure you get it but for those who don’t know, the DR are disciplinary rules for attorneys. K.
A fellow who worked at a bar
Said, ‘My job is really bizarre!
Although one might think
I only serve drink,
I pour out more counsel, by far!
A woman was called to the Bar –
Degree paid for as a porn star –
Soliciting thus
Is a great deal less fuss,
Than when in the back of a car!
Steve and Jamie had hiked up the bar
Between Paradise Lost and that car.
I’d no great wife’s pudendum
Or pun to upend ’em:
Bob Ross versus Klimt and Renoir.
So I went out to look for a bar,
Thinking THERE I could still be a star.
But my jokes were all spurned;
In the end, all I earned
Was a snort and one “hardy har har.”
Ole Bard Bartram bequeathed me a bar
Of black candy that sealed lips with tar.
Like in some weird cartoon,
“The King Alfred Saloon”
Flashed in neon. I skulked to my car.
At the tollbooth, the man said “Disbar
This imposter — her dull wit will mar
The Queen’s otherwise stellar
Mad band. To the cellar!”
And, thumbs pointing down, “Au revoir!”
I hold on to an oddly shaped bar
That’s engraved to read, “Just a Cigar,”
I begin to fall fast.
“Could you be more outclassed?”
A demonic voice mocks from afar.
In court, counsel approaches the bar,
Strumming lyres (ok — a guitar);
“She’s as guilty as sin…
She believes she can win!
Give her life!” Scoffed my lawyer, Jack Paar.
In my cell, a tin cup, bar by bar
’Cross my window clangs. One distant star
Winks from light years away
As if dying to say,
“JR, only the bright ones should spar.”
So I doze with my head on the bar,
And I dream of a little glass jar
Labeled “John Milton’s Brain;
Take by Honda or train
(Deadline: 12) to the limerick tsar.”
But the goo from that bard’s tarry bar
Glued my lips to a part of Bill Maher
Where the sun doesn’t shine.
“Hey, you asshole, that’s mine!
Just WHO, Ma’am, do YOU think you ARE?”
Poof! Out of thin air: Roseanne Barr!
Yeah, this story just gets more bizarre.
She unfastened my kiss
And said, “Do better, Sis,
Or pack up and go back to Bryn Mawr.”
In my hands, she placed one golden bar,
And said “Fly from this cell, you’ll go far.”
So I thought I’d sprout wings,
But (and this part still stings),
That old witch turned me into a char.
So before you go raising the bar,
Give a thought to the deep psychic scar
You may leave in your wake.
Have a heart, for god’s sake!
My inventiveness ain’t up to par.
a fellow who worked at a bar
ate plates and plates of tartar
while serving the drinks
with plish plash and clinks
and with his apron looked quite bizar
a fellow who opened a bar
to see if poetry could go far
invited his friends
the fun never end
you too can be a dverse star
ha
So farewell to Brother Jab-bar
I’ve pre-served his nuts in a jar
And to me it’s quite plain
They are not Einstein’s brain
And they haven’t impressed me so far.
Well I don’t think I could raise the bar
After reading JR’s long histoire
Both erudite and witty
It’s really a pity
She is looking for “je ne sais quoi”
A rehash of an earlier one!
A tourist who supped at the bar
One evening in Doha, Qatar.
Had brought the wrong money
(Perhaps this is more funny?)
He tried to pay with riyals for dinar!
A dancer who stretched at the barre
said, “I’d sure like to be a big star.
I must sharpen my wits
and augment my tits
’cause my talent won’t take me too far.
She canned him, thus raising the bar
For disposal of victims by far:
“His vaults were all locked,
Opportunity knocked,
And I realized my door was a jar.”
A dancer who stretched at the barre
Once stretched just a little too far
You can tell cause he walks
With a limp and he talks
Twice higher than Pat Benatar
George W’s mother is Bar
Whose thoughts as a mom are bizarre.
“My Jeb’s the smart son
And so, shouldn’t run.”
Apparently, she went too far.
A lawyer was passing the bar
by defending a violent star
he signed with his blood
from basement a thud
and enter the netherworld czar
A fellow had just left the bar,
But couldn’t get into his car.
His keys were misplaced
With a gal hardly chaste.
He’d retrieve them, in hope’s they go far.
A physicist sits in a bar
He’s a post-doc from William and Mar
And he orders Bud Light
For the stool on his right
Which is empty. You with me so far?
The fellow who’s tending the bar
Asks our physicist, (puffing cigar)
Why he purchased a beer
For a gal whose not here
His reply was in no way ‘on par’
Says he, “Nothing in physics should bar
A spontaneous change. ‘Zip-Zap-Zar!’
Sitting here on this stool
Could appear a girl who’ll
Do the dirty with me in my car”
The barman leans over the bar
He says ”Hey buddy, look where you are!
In here’s many a girl
That would give you a whirl”
What he hears back is “None have so far”
So to wrap, if you’re down at this bar
Don’t be shocked to see something bizarre
It’s a bookworm named Biff
Try’n to get lucky if
Quantum portals come slightly ajar
A sign in a privateer’s bar
Says “To all those who’ve come from afar,
You may not be knowin’
If you’re comin’ or goin’
But whichever it is here you argh!”
V. Van Gogh is morose in a bar
Cries on shoulder of Monsieur Renoir
Says “Of painting I grew sick,
I’ve no ear for music
I can’t even take up guitar”
There’s a joke of Descartes in a bar:
On the stage is a guy and guitar
Patron says “This act’s hot!”
Descartes sneers “I think not”
“Poof!” He’s gone without say’n “Au revoir”
Sarah Palin walks into a bar
Waitress says “Hell, I know who you are
Till you got back with FOX
On their idiot box
You ‘ere a floozy without a boudoir”
A lim’rick walks into a bar
Saying double ‘A’ double ‘B’, ‘R’
But he’s told “In this dive
Show respect for line five”
By the bouncer, Cesar, and the guard
Some might say CBS raised the bar
Others think that they took it too far
But the hype long ago
On that soap selling show
Back in ’80 was “Who shot JR?”
A waitress who worked in a bar
With drunken old letches would spar.
She said, “This is so not
What I planned when I got
My art hist’ry degree from Bryn Mawr.”
A fellow who worked at a bar
Lost his arm in a wreck in a car
Now he opens his flies
When on stage with the guys–
One-handed, he still plays guitar… ;-p
A habitue’ at the bar
Bared his heart (with a tall whiskey sour)
He nearly was wed
‘Til his beloved fled
With some ponce they all called Lochinvar!
A young lady who worked in a bar
Met this gay who was sort of bizarre
Who came from Nantucket
Found OldBoy he could suck it
And now hopes in this verse he will star
This is for T A L O N J U L Y 8
When judging they lower the bar,
And cheer as she makes it this far.
Clear discrimination?
I’ll ease your frustration.
With Limbo this makes her a star!
Travis was scairt by a bar
and after he had run very far
the ranger asked where,
had he seen this bear?
Laughed Travis, I wore pants, this par.
(I’m afraid this was funnier in my head)
By camel they rode to Mal’abah
Leaving clamour of souk and bazaar.
For desert rose bloom
By Queen Shanadakhete’s Tomb
And the Nile flowing ever afar.
I entered this dark biker bar.
He approached, this hulk with a scar.
Then he started to dance,
Was he gay, not chance!
Just a boxer who needed to spar.
She gave him a wink at the bar
Saying “Come with me to the Casbah”
And the next thing they went
To a very nice tent
I’d be guessing what went on from thar.
He stared at the girls at the barre,
Especially when they bent far
And their stretchy tight tutus
Barely covered their foofoos,
And their grand jetes were rated R.
Revising
He stared at the girls at the barre,
Whenever that they bent so far
That their stretchy tight tutus
Barely covered their foofoos,
And their grand jetes were rated R.
In Airplane with Abdul-Jabbar
Young Joey had ID’d the star
fumed in the cockpit
Kareem had a fit
His panties had risen too far
While your multiple drinks from the bar
May add to your net R and R,
At tip time they’ll act
To divide and subtract
From your knack to perform the third R.
A High Jumper just cleared the bar
His greatest achievement so far
But his Jock Strap elastic
Snapped and went spastic
Now his old boy is wearing a scar.
An Aussie Lawyer was admitted to the Bar
And were right when they said he’d go far
He fucked up his first case
So the Firm to save face
Sent him to Zanzibar
A naïve fellow entered a gay bar
But he didn’t get very far
For said the innocent fool,
“May I push back your stool?”
Thus committing his first Faux Pas.
Six Frenchmen went up to the bar
To the barmaid they said”Ooh la la
So what does it cost?”
She said “Go and get lost”
And they did it ( it seems) en tous cas.
“They have free sex and free drinks in a new bar”
Said an Indian to friends in Dhaka
One said, “Gee that’s great,
Have you been there yet mate?”
“No, my wife’s only been there so far.”
A Ship’s Sparky stood at the bar
And told of his life so far
How he’d stuck to tradition
Following Dad an Electrician
And when born the first shock to his Pa.
A midget walked into a bar
But couldn’t reach up all that far
So they elevated his arse
But he couldn’t handle a glass
So lapped up his booze from a jar.
A Motorcyclist met a whore in a bar
And was having it off in his sidecar
But when a spring broke
He finished his poke
On the seat of a nearby car.
A Golfer met, a big star in a bar
And they went for a shag in his car
When she parted her thighs
And he saw it’s size
He knew then he would make it in par.
An old Hooker who frequents a bar
Services customers in her old car
But dodging gear shift’s a job
As it hasn’t a knob
Which can give you a bruise or a scar.
Boss is constantly raising the bar.
Worker says it does not seem bizarre.
And he says it’s all right,
That he welcomes the height.
He’s a pole vaulter, wants to go far.
A dancer who stretched at the barre
Found she’d spread her legs too far
Which caused a great crack
In her Sacroiliac
And Spinjinic Mandragerar
Thanks so much everyone for another fun week of limericks. This Limerick-Off is officially over. And the winner is…
Congratulations to the Limerick of the Week Winner, the Facebook Friends’ Choice Award Winner, and the Honorable Mention Winners! Limerick of the Week 122
But you can still have lots of limerick fun because a new Limerick-Off has just begun: Limerick Kick.