This weekend’s Blow’em will be in the form of limericks. Everyone knows what a limerick is, but let’s go over it anyway:
A limerick is a form of verse … in five-line, predominantly anapestic trimeter with a strict rhyme scheme of AABBA, in which the first, second and fifth lines rhyme, while the third and fourth lines are shorter and share a different rhyme.
Extra points if the topic of the verse is science.
Double extra points if your limerick is in a language other than English.
If you’re having trouble getting started, here are a few lines you can riff off of:
1) The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter. (Twain)
2) How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live. (Thoreau)
3) Slang is a language that rolls up its sleeves, spits on its hands and goes to work. (Sandburg)
4) Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something. (Plato)
Aaaaand go!
___________
BK
I'll start.
A Uyghur with a load of blue rep
Trod the Silk Road with a surfeit of pep.
To while away hours
He planted hundreds of flowers
As a way to put Spring in his Steppe.
Diana
Aster, azalea, and chrysanthemum
Blooms of a plenty and of maximum
Joy he bestowed
On the gravel below
Don’t think about where the seeds had come from.
BK
This trader in silk and in wool
Knew what to do when push came to pull;
He surely weren't lazy
When pushing up Daisy
And had extra seed by the handful.
__________
Brian
There once stood a man from Corinth
Obsessed by an analogue synth
Just a filtered VCO,
Yet the hours would flow
As it droned on and on from its plinth.
Diana
I’m not really sure of what you speak
But I can tell you my interest you have piqued
I’d like to learn more
Unless it’s a bore
And only a topic that concerns geeks.
Brian
The brief bit that here I have shown
Has a language indeed all its own
Used for music it's true,
From engineering experiments it grew
Moog's among them likely of most renown.
_________
Diana
Our flower, our daughter, our dear Sister Sue
Artist and dreamer and lover of truth
She walks in the rain
And often complains
Her heart has been broken but she’s learned to make do.
BK
No way should our dear Sue surrender
To that heartbreaker, that vile pretender.
She should do what I do,
Eschew the boo-hoo
And go on a seven-day bender.
Diana
It’s tempting, the cure you recommend
But it’s better to have a drink with a friend
So if you’re inclined
To poison your mind
This blasted sobriety we can quickly end!
__________
BK
Laughter is medicine, they say,
That keeps melancholy at bay.
So, is it true or a rumor
That some vital humour
Should be injected three times a day?
Diana
Injecting humor into the day
Is a good way to keep the blues at bay
But to use a syringe
Just makes me cringe
I don’t think you're using it the correct way!
__________
Brian
I HAI THERE! U SEE THIZ LOLCAT
I AM IN UR POST IS A FACT
U THINK IS TRICK - IS MY LIMERICK
BUT THEN LIKE SNEK I ATTAC
Diana
Doge coin is soaring and Grumpy cat dead
The cat with the lady screaming off her fool head
I do love a meme
Even though it does seem
That I Can Haz Cheezburger has gone to your head.
__________
Terry
So this Schrodinger dude had a cat
As did Seuss, but his cat had a hat
Meanwhile I must see
What the vet bill will be
Before putting this… hey, why just a mat?
__________
BK
A doughboy hunkered down in a trench,
Was desperate his hunger to quench.
He tossed back a dram,
Ate a forkful of Spam
But cursed the poor Service, damned French.
A soldier 'tween Par-ee and Berlin
Gave a young partisan some flowers and gin.
To his wanton insistence
She showed no Resistance
And now they are living in Seine.
A soldier alone and afraid
Said, "To hell with this chicken brigade."
He was looking for fun
In the War with the Hun
"I just came to France to get laid."
__________
Joe
Schrödinger boxed up his cat
And had some mates ‘round to his flat
Heisenberg said,
“Alive and/or dead,
I’m really unsure about that”
BK
Schrödinger peeked in his box all agog,
Eager to record the results in his log.
Despite his suspicion
Of superposition,
What he found was a dead Pavlov's dog.
Joe
Pavlov kept ringing his bell
Trials were going quite well
Immersed in a pool
Of fresh canine drool
Data collection is hell
BK
Pavlov was just a beginner;
An apéritif before dinner.
Not just Schrödinger's box
Was prone to give shocks;
For that we also have Skinner.
_________
Joe
Young Thomas Dolby did find
A lass who was brilliant of mind
Who moved like the ocean
Like verse writ in motion
Alas, the result left him blind.
The lab coat said to the blazer,
“When learning to be an appraiser
As you and your buddies
Read all our studies
Remember to use Occam’s razor”
A frustrated pro climatologist
Berated a petrol apologist
“Your argument’s spurious
And I am so furious
You’ll need a damn good proctologist!”
__________
Diana
The cloud rides a wave of soft blowing breeze
Drifts gently over the tops of the trees
Then out comes the sun
To ruin its fun
Burning away a life made of ease.
__________
Terry
Johnny was a chemist
Johnny is no more
What he thought was H20
Was H2SO4.
Diana
The solution Johnny drank made his insides burn
Once it started working, to go back he did yearn
But now he’s gone
To the great beyond
And now it is a fact that Johnny will never learn
DAY TWO
We had a good run of science limericks last night thanks to Joe Ramsey. Let's change the topic. Extra points for literature-themed limericks.
BK
A man with a penchant for horror
Had a crow show up at his door.
He talked to the bird,
It said not a word.
The man was more morose than before.
Joe
Big black bird perched upon Pallas
Croaks a word gloomy and callous
Man says, “Lenore?
I’ll see nevermore?
Then what shall I do with my… [chalice] ?”
BK
A fellow was stuck on some isle
To survive by luck and by guile.
With his man Friday
And, too, God Almighty
He managed to be shipwrecked in style.
Gregor S. woke up a cockroach
Which earned him no end of reproach.
His visage grotesque,
Dare I say Kafkaesque,
But worse, now he has to fly coach.
Linda
There once was a cloud from Nantucket
That brooded then shed rains in buckets.
We All dash Inside
To keep OurSelves dry
Whatever it takes, we say f*#% it!
Terry
A difficult drunkard named Hemingway
Chortled not (“Keep it simple, he did say)
He fished, hunted, shot skeet
He of course ate red meat
And considered bullfighting a holiday.
Linda
There once was a cat from Newberry
his tuxedo/mask/blackandwhite/hairy
Sure he walks kinda funny
It just makes me feel sunny
And rested and calm and aware-y
BK
As the Dust Bowl did discommode
The family of parolee Tom Joad,
He said, "These grapes are all wrath
So you do the math
And let's get this show on the road."
Joe
The lonely wanderer Wordsworth
Knew just what a cloud or a bird’s worth
He got lots of thrills
From yon daffodils
But never could say what a turd’s worth.
Young Beowulf had some swagger
He was a great boaster and bragger
He said to his brother,
“You see Grendel’s mother?
I’ll bet you hands down I could shag 'er!”
Lady Macbeth had a plot
Alas, she got what she got
The family dog tried
To not go outside
Making her cry, “Out, damn’d Spot!!!”
BK
A gimpy old salt past his prime
Obsessed over a leviathan big time.
He called out to his crew
Because thar she blew,
And they all had a whale of a time.
DAY THREE
Literature is working, but let's expand the theme to include history, as well.
Joe
Attila the Hun threw his sandal
In fact he flew right off the handle.
“I’ll make a dread broth
From the bones of the Goths,
For my horse was spray-painted by Vandals!”
A Viking explorer named Leif
Crossed paths with a Newfoundland chief
Leif’s mouth was agape
At all the wild grapes
“I’ll call it Vinland in my brief”
Marie Antoinette laid in bed
As mobs down below chanted, “Bread!”
“Such noise they all make!
Why don’t they eat cake?
She muttered and soon lost her head.
An edict, in blistering terms
With plenty of Drangs und some Sturms
Directed at Luther
Grew quite uncouther
And said, “eat this Diet of Worms!”
BK
Not one to orate to excess,
Lincoln spoke modestly, but with finesse.
"And if you so choose
To make known your reviews,
Have them sent to my Gettysburg Address."
She'd have been a great unknown unless
She could make an element fluoresce.
Marie, ever Curie-ous,
Found her discovery injurious,
And retired to bask in the glow of success.
A captain and all-'round bad guy
Made rules crew could not abide by.
Retribution was swift,
Mutineers set him adrift,
And laughed as they waved him bye-Bligh.
If I can say this in words anapest ...
Lewis and Clark set off on a quest
To reach the far coast,
And raise a French toast:
Their Destiny clearly Manifest.
