I've invented a monkey prosthesis
That endows them with telekinesis.
There's a bit of a snag, though:
A ten second lag.  So
I've dubbed the device HysteRhesus.

Based on the suggestion: "hysteresis"

Hysteresis n. The lag in response time of something reacting to a change in force

My nana was born in Peru
So her proverbs are slightly askew.
One I never forgot:
She would say, "A washed pot
Never spoils." I guess that that's true...

Based on the suggestion: "A washed pot never spoils"

A river horse (erstwhile anonymous)
Had a yen for a title synonymous
With herself and her breed
When she burned her CD,
So she titled the thing "Hippeponymous."

Based on the suggestion: "Hippeponymous"

Eponymous adj. named after a specific person

When you host a "Psychology Waltz,"
You butter the dance floor with schmaltz.
The patterns arising
From dancers capsizing
Create some amazing gestalts.

Based on the suggestion: "waltz/schmaltz'

A guy at the mint had some tricks
For smuggling gold.  He put six
Of the bars up his bum
But got caught (He was dumb.
And so scared that he literally shat bricks).

Based on the suggestion: "The news story about the guy who worked at the Canadian mint, and allegedly smuggled out around C$180,000 worth of gold in his 'internal cavity.'"

To "shit bricks" is a slang term for being so scared or startled that you have this (metaphorical) physical reaction.

I'd likely to smugly claim that I used "literally" correctly in this case.  But while the verb was literal, the noun is actually a lie; they weren't bricks or bars, they were "oreo-sized discs."  When someone updates the slang to "I was so scared I shat an oreo-sized disc!" I'll write a new limerick.

Said a crotchety man from East Leicester,
"My clothes always prickle and peicester.
"My life would be jamois
"In slacks made of chamois,
"Instead of this cheap polyeicester!"

Based on the suggestion: "Said a crotchety"

A boy of Italian descent
Made a ball out of rubber cement
Which he threw from the tower
Of Pisa with power
So great it bounced down in Tashkent.

Based on the suggestion: "A boy of Italian descent"

"You're a dumb, ugly, backwater zero!"
Taunted school chums of poor Agnew (Spiro).
But he gave them cuisine
From the Greek street-food scene,
And his sobriquet's now "Small-Town Gyro!"

Based on the suggestion: "small-town gyro"

A doula who came from Missoula
Made a YouTube on "prepartum hula."
Her Hip-Rolling Spiral
Immediately went viral,
And now the gal's rolling in moolah.

Based on the suggestion: "doula"

Doula: n. A woman who is trained to provide support to women and their families during pregnancy, childbirth and the period of time following the birth.

Here's a practical joke that a LARPer
Can play on their friend who's a harper:
Tune her strings each to A,
Then invite her to play
At the Elvenqueen's feast (and then scarper!)

Based on the suggestion: "harp"

LARP stands for Live Action Role-Playing [Game].  LARPers tend to dress in costume and participate in historical recreations or fantasy situations.

And, in case it's not clear from context, "to scarper" means "to flee."

If your purple prose makes folks abhor you,
I have just the right drug to restore you!
You need a depressant,
An "anti-expressant,"
And my patent Prozaic will cure you!

Based on the suggestion: "prosaic as a pun on Prozac"

Some might think me a simple fond Jew
When I tell them I lust for fondue.
But my biblical scrolls
Aren't written in gold...
"Melted cheese" is my torah's font hue.

Based on the suggestion: "fondue"

My initial goal was to write two limericks per week for a year.  Having achieved that goal, I'm going on hiatus for a bit.

Today's final archived limerick is one of my favorites just because it's so silly.  And also because it typifies what I like most about writing in a constrained form such as a limerick: you wind up with scenarios you'd otherwise never be able to invent, simply because two (or more) unrelated words happen to rhyme, and you have to fill in the blanks to make their connection plausible.

When I ordered some freshly baked bread
At the Cannibal Inn, my host Fred
(Who is deaf in one ear)
Brought a skull on a spear.
Guess he thought I said “fleshless staked head.”

Based on the suggestion: "fresh baked bread"

I don't often know what's going to work and what's going to be too far-fetched.  Particularly when it's a matter of breaking grammatical rules to satisfy the rhyme or meter.  Is it an example of sloppiness, requiring a complete reworking of the idea, or is it an example of creative license, stretching the rules for comic effect?  Usually I just have to share it and see whether I get back positive comments or silence.  This one seems to have succeeded.

I feed my persnickety pumas
On mangosteens, plums, and satsumas.
If they happen to eat
Just one morsel of meat
Then they suffer revenge (Montezuma's).

Based on the suggestion: “satsuma”

All of my saved documents retain the initial attempts at each poem descending down the page, since I start at the top again with each fresh idea.  Looking back over them can be a bit like an archeology dig, seeing the different strata of ideas develop, either with gradual changes, based on the ones below, or a sharp demarcation line, indicating a complete change of tack.

Here's the final version of the poem based on the suggestion "oboe":

An oboe walked into a bar
And was cruised by a Spanish guitar.
She said, “Only six strings,
“And you're flaunting those things?
“You're close, but you're just no sitar.”


The punchline was given to me by my housemate, based on the below idea which I felt just wasn't snappy enough. 

An oboe walked into a bar
With a yearning to be a big star.
So a Djinn in the band
Gave a wave of his hand,
And the oboe became a guitar.


It was almost there, and on a different day I might have said "good enough" and published it, but it didn't quite get across the idea of "the only way for an oboe to be famous would be to turn into a more popular instrument altogether" in a way that felt both clear and funny.  (No offense, oboists!  I love oboes).

Still, it was an improvement on the original formulation, which was a bit hazy as to which character got transmogrified.

An oboe walked into a bar
And announced, “I shall be a big star!”
It so happen a Djinn
Had a wish to cash in,
And poof, he became a guitar. 

(Zildjian is a popular maker of cymbals for drum kits, so I think that's where the "Djinn" came from.  A little too subtle, I think...) 


Going a step backward in time, there are these variations on a theme comparing an oboe with a bassoon.  There were lots of great rhymes with bassoon, so I was sure I would get something out of that, but nothing coalesced.

An oboe, a sax, a bassoon:
Had a contest to make a gal swoon.
The first one was
The second was
And the last sent her over the moon.

An oboe is like a bassoon:
Both their timbres can make a gal swoon.
But the oboe


An oboe is like a bassoon
In the same way a knife's like a spoon:
The first one cuts through


An oboe is like a bassoon,
And a chipmunk is like a raccoon.
Both are smaller and shriller
And 


Finally, my initial idea was so compact that it didn't need more than just two lines.

An oboe has two equal reeds
Which is two more than anyone needs.

I know limericks have a reputation of being salacious.  But this is about as salacious as I get. 

A vicar, whilst studying cartography
Was enraged by a bit of topography:
“There's no need for a crest
“To be centered on Brest!
“It's not mapping!” he cried, “It's pornography!”

Based on the suggestion “cartography”

I'll say it out loud and proud: I like puns.  I like off-the-cuff silly puns, and well-crafted pun punchlines to a shaggy dog story.  But my favorite kind of pun is the one that is like an optical illusion.  Like the picture that is both a duck and a rabbit, or an old lady and a young lady: your brain tries to hold both interpretations at once – like trying to balance on a narrow rail – but you keep falling off to one side or another.  Or you oscillate back and forth quickly between the two, trying to get the oscillations to go fast enough that they blur into a single understanding of both at the same time.  They never do.  But the attempt mesmerizes my brain.

A whole poem is a bit too complex for that effect to take hold, I think.  But if you read through this once and think "wait, what?" and then you read it through a second time and it makes perfect sense, I feel as if I've achieved my goal.

A worker in fabric's a sewer.
A fast-moving sewer's a flower.
A flower's a plant,
And a woman who can't
Keep her hands off a rake is a hoer.

Based on the suggestion: “sewer” (as in “where the alligators live”)

This poem was a bit unusual in the way it came about.  It's one of the few that wasn't directly suggested by someone.  I had been working on the suggestion "sewer" and came up with the rhyme of "fewer" and the idea of substituting the word "less" where "fewer" was expected.  

But there wasn't enough room in the original poem to build a context where it made sense.  So "fewer" budded off into its own poem, and the idea flip-flopped a couple times as to whether "fewer" should be the expected rhyme and "less" would be the actual word, or vice versa.  Eventually I decided that the more pedantic way was funnier.

I've a sin that I have to confess.
When I go to the store, I transgress.
I take 12 jugs of wine
Through the line with the sign
That says, “Only 10 items or fewer.”

Based on the suggestion: “fewer”

This was one of the fastest ones I wrote.  The idea for the "greyhound" rhymes popped into my head fairly quickly, aided by the lucky fact that the rhymes fit so well with the subject matter.  It only took a few more minutes to work out what the two shorter lines should be, and the whole thing fell into place.  I think the part that took the longest was coming up with the word "beguile" when I was looking for a two-syllable synonym for "catch."

An admirable dog is the greyhound.
It's an excellent sit-, heel- and stay-hound.
But should something dash by
And beguile its eye,
It's a blurred streak of running-away-hound.

Based on the suggestion: “greyhound”

August is favorites month!  To celebrate one year of Limerick Boutique, I'm bringing back the ones  people liked best.  Got a favorite?  Let me know and I'll post it.  

This one sticks in my mind because of all the wrangling it took to set up the pun.  To have it work both as meaning "looking for something and being disappointed" and also "succeeding in finding a sofa stuffed with feathers from wild birds," plus fit the rhymes and meter...well, it went through a lot of versions before settling on this one.  

Bob's “All Natural” Love Seats purveys
Just a handful that merit high praise.
When I sought a settee
Stuffed from birds that roam free
I wound up on a wild-goose chaise. 

Based on the suggestion: "wild goose chase"