Well-Read Limerick (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 11:00 p.m. (Eastern Time.)
I hope you’ll join me in writing a limerick with this first line:
A gal who was very well-read…*
or
A man was, alas, in the red…*
or
A woman who always wore red…*
*(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:
Well-Read Limerick
By Madeleine Begun Kane
A gal who was very well-read
Felt stymied in getting ahead.
When she’d mention a book
To co-workers, their look
Always said, “Ain’t that fella still dead?”
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: Competition Limerick, Limerick Challenge, Limerick Contest, Poetry & Prompts, Writing Prompts
My limerick turned my face red
As lascivious thoughts filled my head.
I’m sure you’d be fonder
Of my double entendre
If I dared to reveal what it said.
A woman who lived to wear red
One night took a lover to bed
Her undies went flying
On his face ended lying
She admired this now crimson head
A gal who was very well-read
For a while played a blockhead instead.
She soon found a dumb beau
Who knew not Thoreau.
But had heard that Shakespeare was long dead.
A woman who always wore red
Slinky nightgowns when going to bed.
Looked for all of the part
A sweet little tart
Which made hubby go heels over head.
A man was, alas, in the red
Spent his money on gals till he bled.
When at last he went broke
They said: “Sorry bloke.
You’ll be cold and alone ‘neath the spread.
“Kiss each other one time,” the card read.
“For each day that you two have been wed.
“The original thought:
Something else that you ought
To do, but could leave you both dead.”
Local newspaper article read:
In his home, a cartoonist found dead.
Cops will try to find out
How his death came about.
All the details are sketchy, they said.
I.R.S. sent a notice that read:
“You are due for an audit.” With dread
Obi-Wan did implore,
“Please be nice; I’m here for
The Return of the Jedi,” he said.
“So your skin will not turn a deep red,
Apply sunscreen at beach,” husband pled.
Didn’t take his advice;
She got burned, paid the price.
“Just remember you basked for it,” he said.
A gal who was very well-read
Was looking for someone well-bred,
Who knew the Great Books,
She fell for his looks,
They talked about Sartre in bed.
A gal who was very well-read
Loved politics, “Roses and Bread”.
An end to the squalor,
Bring freedom, she’d holler!
She ended up in jail, instead.
A gal who was very well-read,
Thought her knowledge would get her ahead,
But the economy’s bad,
No job to be had.
She went back to grad school instead.
A gal who is very well-read
has stood the Lone Star on its head
with her pink tennis shoes
her equality views
and a spirit that’s starting to spread
Just who was the ‘Lady in Red’
Who caused Dillinger to be dead
Was it panacea
For his gonorrhea
Or revenge for cheating in bed?
A man was, alas, in the red
His hat store was soon to be dead
He blamed what was above
‘Ill Repute’s House of Love’
He claimed “Too much f*cking overhead!”
A gal who was very well-read
Tried to tempt a young man to her bed.
But such culture can do less
When Emma is Clueless,
And boys watch the movie instead.
A gal who was very well-read
Was up last night reading in bed
The story engrossed her
And that’s when I hosed her–
She’s pregnant and don’t know we bred!!
A fellow who claimed to have read
“Ulysses”, while lying in bed,
Admitted, when pressed,
He was there for the rest,
As the challenge had done in his head.
A gal who was very well-read
Had once read a book where it said
“If you close up your knees
You will not get disease.”
[That’s why Monica only gave head]
Old fashioned, she always wore red,
said it kept her from being well bred,
with Tom Dick or Harry,
the red kept her chary,
her Stop won’t Go green till she’s wed!
A man was, alas, in the red,
could not stop collecting the “Dead”;
when he learned most were fake,
shrugged, shared with us his take,
“Part, like Jerry, of my overhead!’
A gal who was very well read
made a cozy spot up in her bed
she was gone for such ages
‘twas feared all her pages
were turned, and she’d ended there, dead.
TRUE STORY
My late Uncle Lou was a Red,
And was falsely accused–This was said:
His gentle demeanor
Hid a cold-blooded schemer
Who would kill Joe McCarthy quite dead.
How a snitch led McCarthy to Louis Bortz
A woman who always wore red
Was walking the streets to earn bread
Was told she should stop
So she’s started to hop
Down the street when she works now instead
A man who was very well-read
was a terrible danger in bed.
All his books smarts
could not stop his farts.
His wife used a pillow. He’s dead.
A man was, alas, in the red
From buying a stock that’s now dead
The prospectus told traders
That they made elevators
“They had ups and downs”, the man said
A gent was alas in the red,
HId some assets just under his bed,
Because of tomfollery
His mistress found jewellery
And ruined the rue’s street cred!
A gal who was very well-read,
preferred to seem vacant instead.
Sharpest knives in the drawer
Pay their own way, what’s more,
Her chump’s ego e’er had to be fed.
A gal who was very well-read
Just nourished the brain in her head.
She wasted away
For, sadly to say,
You can’t live without wine and bread.
A woman was very well-read
And loaded some books on her bed
But when she reclined
She was in a bind
As there was no place for her head!
A woman was very well-read
And her topic of choice was sex ed.
“Dr. Kinsey’s her guide,”
Beamed her man, grinning wide.
“She just Masters my Johnson,” he said.
A man was, alas, in the red
Having poured some paint over his head
“So what can I do
I intended shampoo
And I wanted my hair clean instead.”
A woman was very well-read
And knew it all from A to Z
But her memory flipped
When faced with Sanskrit
And Hieroglyphs filled her with dread
A gal, seems, is very well-read:
Fairy tales are her butter and bread.
She sings and she hums
But her prince never comes
Since she won’t drop the book, once in bed.
A gal who was very well-read
was tossing and turning in bed
cause the words hummed and flipped
rolled, danced and dipped
in her brain round n round a-z
A gal who was really well-read
was found in the bar at Club Med.
In her lap was a book,
from her eyes came a look:
“Don’t mess with my full color spread!”
A baker went into the red
When his payroll costs came to a head:
“I pay Dad and my brother,
Three aunts and my mother!”
It seems his whole family’s inbread.
His relationship minefield drips red—
Brief encounters still fill him with dread,
For each tentative pass
Gets a kick in the ass
And the firm admonition: “Drop dead!
A woman who always wore red
A habit for which others dread
Never been passive
Rather very aggressive
She erupts even not under threats
Hank
a gal who was very well read
kept a light by the side of the bed
she slept a la mode
on the nights all so cold
so she could flash without ever leaving the bed
A woman who always wore red
managed to turn all the heads
of the guests on the day
her father gave her away–
in a crimson lace gown she wed.
or
A woman who always wore red
made all of the people stop dead.
Imagine the terror
when she, a pallbearer,
stuck out like sore thumb (that bled).
A gal who is very well read
Does most of her reading in bed
But her hubby objects
When he don’t get no sex
And he sets up his nest in the shed.
A gal who was very well read
Would read every night before bed.
She read novels and history
Loved fiction and mystery
And Kuma Satra the night she was wed.
A gal who was very well-read
Applied all that learning in bed
Where her skill with focachia
out-DE-bauched Boccaccio
Which earned her a large sum of bread
Of novels, Fred’s gal is well read,
But says she’s quite tired of Fred
“In bed he’s a bore”
“But still I adore”
“A climax, just not in Fred’s bed”
My computer was sure it had read
The prime booty for which my heart bled,
So to prove that thing wrong
I spent days searching “thong,”
Then bought white cotton panties instead.
A gal who was deep in the red
Had a twin, with fortunes widespread
Whenever they’d bicker
The poor twin was quicker:
“You’re rich, but you’re ugly!” she said
My copy of Walden’s well read
The tale of Thoreau’s old homestead
He felt that he must
Toss the rocks for the dust
Because complexity is better off dead
A young woman who’s very well-read,
Likes to read with her dates while in bed.
And she’s found bookish lovers
Absorbed between covers
Can make her feel rather well-bred.
A girl once riddled in red
Skin flush until suddenly dead
Then white as a ghost
Her life was quite toast
For WHAT? It’s never been said…
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 150.
But you can still have lots of limerick fun because a new Limerick-Off has just begun: Limerick Scene.