Just in time for St. Patrick’s Day, Voice readers responded to our call to share limericks, the poetic form of five lines and two rhymes, typically accompanied by a lilting rhythm and a bit of humor. Our thanks to the poets who contributed these lines.
Fritz and Blitz
Frivolous Fritz and Blundering Blitz
went shopping one day at the mall
Blitz made his way,
toppling every display
while Fritz gladly paid for it all.
They entered to dine, a cafe down the line
with a salad buffet near the door.
Blitz stumbled head first
n the cold liverwurst;
Fritz ate it all, asking for more.
It didn’t seem right when they left for the night
that they didn’t look worse for the trouble.
Their goods in a sack,
they didn’t look back
at the mall now reduced to a rubble.
§
Once a leprechaun lost his way home
after leaving his village to roam
When I saw him he froze
like a rock head to toes
Now he sits in my garden, a gnome
Minerva and Chuck had a date
He picked her up promptly at 8
She was angry, it seemed
it was so, cuz she screamed
“Our date was at 7, YOU”RE LATE!”
He gave her a flower bouquet
he had stopped to pick up on the way
He said he had found
the cheapest around
that he plucked from a funeral display
He said “Should we see a show, Honey?”
I hear it’s incredibly funny
They got ready to pay
everyone heard her say
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN, YOU’VE NO MONEY?”
When he took her home for the night
The timing to Chuck, was just right
He leaned in for a kiss
She said “I’LL GIVE YOU THIS!”
and she knocked poor Chuck out like a light
Pat Larson, Lone Rock
an elegant, aged iguana
had cousins who ate marijuana
invited to dine
she coolly declined
to mix with such scandalous fauna
§
nevermore may we hear the word “dance”
be employed as a rhyme to “romance”
we must strive for our days
to be free of cliches
(though one doubts that has much of a ……)
§
what if, to enjoy mignon fillet
I need be the fellow to kill it?
perhaps I’d employ
some hungrier boy
to see to the task and then bill it
§
there’s nothing so sure as a fable
to credit a smear or a label
conflating thereby
the truth with the lie
the charlatan’s scheme to enable
§
there was an young man with a phone
on which he dependent had grown
when going to bed
t’was taped to his head
to keep him from feeling alone
§
he thought of himself as so clever
his rhyming would go on forever
neglecting to see
how mortality
might serve to constrain the endeavor
Michael Brandt, Arena
Mid winter gray skies are usual,
The groundhog’s arrival is crucial.
My early spring hopes start to blossom….
But NO! That’s just an opposum.
I’ve been duped by a rat-tailed marsupial.
Winter weather still plays hocus-pocus:
Ice, snow, sleet, and rain—I can’t focus.
My thoughts wander, beg pardon,
I dream of my garden….
And yearn for first sight of a crocus!
Sharon Rowe, Iowa County
Winter sun warms the barn where they lay
Dreaming of grazing green grass in May;
The cows are at rest,
Doing their best,
To make milk with corn, water, and hay.
§
Ireland never had snakes to be banished,
But the one in our basement was famished,
Until many a mouse
Tried to enter our house,
Now thanks to the snake they have vanished.
§
Dance jigs and hornpipes, play a tin whistle too,
Drink Guinness, make colcannon, try something new,
Pick shamrocks, wear green,
Have fun, don’t be mean,
And luck of the Irish be always with you!
Charlanne FitzGerald, Brigham Township