The first 50

Firstly we hope you like this slightly tongue in cheek collection from and by Joe Guerin.

• A one liner Rhymer from Khymer

• A little known poet from Looe
  Penned Lim'ricks that stopped at line two

• A Limer-ricker from South Bend
  Wrote Lim'ricks without any end
  When they got to line three

• A poet I know was fated
  To write verses that were truncated
  From the end of line four
  There just weren't no more

• A hardworking poet called Clive
  With tremendously, effortful strive
  While penning his Lim'ricks
  Eschewed any Slim'ricks
  And made sure that they went to line 5

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The clever bits?
I like to think they all are.

#4 Dick Hedger A diner became rather flusterd When all his resources he mustered To sort out the sauces On various courses And discovered the mustard was custard

#5 Dick Hedger A dizzy young lady called Patti When asked how to spell Cincinnati Said "First you sin twice Then it's natty, that's nice"! How could anyone be quite so scatty

#6 Dick Hedger
In a Chinese restr'ant in St.Louis
You can order a lovely chop suey
It's the best in Missouri
And this Eastern pot-pourri
Is served steaming, all messy and gooey

#7 Dick Hedger A young lady living in Brighton Created a marvellous sight on The night she forgot Her curtains to shut While preparing for bed with her light on

#8 Dick Hedger A fruiterer trading in Wareham Used a sharp knife on his pears to pare 'em He sold pears by the pair But if any were spare He was only too happy to share'em

#9 Dick Hedger
There's a lot of small boats down at Hayling
Where they really enjoy going sailing
But sometimes there's bailing
If the wind is not tailing
Or the skills of the skipper are failing

Poetry is what gets lost in translation.
Robert Frost

#10 Dick Hedger There was once a fellow called Keith Who was getting quite long in the teeth In the mission position He bowed to tradition But was much more relaxed underneath

#11 Dick Hedger A wiry young Ath'lete called Jim Always runs very hard, full of vim Not to mention the vigour But his poor little figure Is so terribly thin round the rim

#12 Diana Pritchard
There was once a town with five lines
That gained all it's wealth from five mines
One day they all closed
So the place was bulldozed
Now there's nothing left but five signs

#13 Cosmo Monkhouse There was a young lady of Riga Who smiled as she rode on a tiger They returned from the ride With the lady inside And a smile on the face of the tiger

#14 Ogden Nash An elderly bride of Port Jervis Was quite understandably nervis Since her apple-cheeked groom With three wives in the tomb Kept insuring her during the servis

#15 Eugene Field
'Tis strange how the newspapers honour
A creature that's called Prima Donna;
They say not a thing
About how she can sing,
But write reams 'bout the clothes she has on 'er.

#16 Anthony Euwer As a beauty I'm not a great star There are others more handsome by far; But my face, I don't mind it, (That's 'cause I'm behind it), It's them folks out in front that do jar.

#17 Don Ping There once was an orthodox preacher Who fancied himself the best teacher His was the technique Negative and oblique To scare Hell out of every creature

#18 Morris Bishop

The limerick is furtive and mean
You must keep her in close quaratine,
Or she sneaks to the slums
And promptly becomes
Disorderly, drunk and obscene.

#19 Niels Nielson This nasty young man from Darjeeling Jumped on a bus close to Ealing The note on the door Said don't spit on the floor So he thoughtfully spat on the ceiling

#20 Edward Gorey From the bathing-machine came a din As of jollification within It was heard far and wide And the incoming tide Had a definite flavour of gin

One merit of poetry that few persons will deny:
it says more and in fewer words than prose.
Voltaire.

#22 Joe Guerin A Maths teachers son from Port Leaven Could often count right up to seven He sometime's was fine With an eight or with nine But never made ten or eleven

#22a Howard B.Cress A daring young man from Rangoon Flew away in a hot air balloon He was humbled, alas When he ran out of gas In a lonely lagoon about noon

#23 (a & b) Leslie Johnson
A fellow who spies in the distance
Striped tigers, will get some assistance
From reading Descartes
Who holds that it's part
Of his duty to doubt their existence

BUT

Let him be a student of Berkely
One thing will emerge, rather starkly
That he ought to believe
What his senses perceive
No matter how dimly or darkly

#24 Don Ping With insatiable drive to expound Vain feelings constrained, seeming bound What he couldn't in mime He accomplished in Rhyme Till relief with a Limerick was found

#25 Paul Griffin I once owned a cat called Maria Who sang like a Welsh Ladies choir When out on the tiles For miles and miles It sounded like Handels Messiah.

#26 Stanley Sharpless
The smile on the famed Mona Lisa
Has long been a bit of a teaser
Perhaps Leonardo
In a fit of bravado
Made as if he were going to squeeze 'er.

#27 Diana Pritchard There was a fat man from Kuwait who couldn't reduce his great weight. When he flew to Carlisle he was blocking the aisle so he then had to travel as freight

#28 D.CUDMORE A ballistical student named Rafferty Went into a Gentleman's lafferty When the walls met his sight He said 'Newton was right This must be the centre of Graffity.'

#29 Clark C. Simpson
Said an erudite, well set up ermine
'There's one thing I cannot determine
If a gal wears my coat
She's a person of note
But when I do, I'm only called vermin'

Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down.
Robert Frost

The emperor Marcus Aurelius
Said when we feel , it's not really us
Yet I rather suppose
That a smack on the nose
He'd have thought was a bit contumelious

#33 Stanley Sharpless There was a young lady....tut, tut! So you think you are in for some smut Some five lined crescendo Of lewd innuendo? Well, you're wrong. This is anything but.

#34 Langford Reed Think of the ferocious Lynx His savage, and stubborn, and stynx Though he never has stunk Quite as bad as the skunk 'Cause the task is beyond him - methinx.

#35    ANON

With his last dying breath cried the ocelot,
"Being wrapped in these coils hurts an offa' lot.
I've made a mistake
in judging this snake
I'd thought that boas were a docile lot".

#36a Jan Ross A wily old man - his name? - Bill Had in his pocket a Will To save family time And to keep every dime He ground himself up in a mill

AND

#36b Jan Ross The will in the pocket of Bill Was ground up in this paper mill As they now bide their time The family aint fine As they search still (in vain) for the will

#37 Paul Alexander
The Chief Sterwardess of a Boeing
When asked where the aircraft was going
Said: 'Our navigator
Is joining us lator
And till then we have no way of knowing.

#38    Stanley Sharpless Let the eugenist reach for his gun Would Keats have been Keats if A1? And the world better off With a healthy Van Gogh And a clean-living, right thinking Donne?

#39    Basil Ransome-Davies Said Plato:"The things that we feel Are not ontologically real But just the excrescence Of numinous essence Our senses can never reveal"

#40 Leslie Johnson

Don't think it will fall to your lot
To get what you like, it will not;
But if your heroic
And think like the Stoic
You'll think that you like what you've got

The mind that finds it's way into wild places is the poet's;
but the mind that never finds it's way back is the lunatic's.
G.K.Chesterton

Said a practical thinker: "one should
Help to kill superstition for good
I, for instance, refuse
To observe all taboos,
With immunity - so far - touch wood

#44     Ogden Nash A novelist of the absurd Has a voice that will shortly be heard I learn from my spies He's about to devise An unprintable three letter word

#45     D.H.Cudmore An English professor named Brookes Said 'Reviewing is not what it looks; Now I always choose To review the reviews Of the books about writers of books

#46     J.Guerin

A math teacher's son from Port Leaven
Could count from just one up to seven
On good days when t'was fine
He'd reach eight (or a nine)
But could never make ten or eleven

#47     C.Best Said a pupil of Einstein:"It's rotten To find I'd completely forgotten That by living so fast All my future's my past And I'm buried before I'm begotten."

#48 Joe Guerin     If it's done and it's right never fear 'Cause it's fine and the buck stops right here But! if it's a loss And it's wrong, it's the boss Whose at fault, let's just make that quite clear. OR If it's wrong - well that's life And it's surely the wife OR YET If it's wrong it's that louse Of the man of the house

#49     Shelby Forest

(An American on a visit - as if you hadn't guessed)
To a London car rental I strode
I might not have gone had I 'knowed'
I'd go in and out
On that blamed round about
And drive the wrong side of the road

Poetry is the language in which man explores his own amazement.
Christopher Fry

And from here there's only one way to go - page two of this archive
Don't panic - there's also a way out !