Frankfurt Limerick

Photograph of Old St. Nicholas Church in Frankfurt am Main's town square at dusk.
A streetwalker from Old Town Frankfurt
had a proclivity for getting hurt.
'Twasn't violent clientele.
She tripped and she fell
where heel met cobble met tight skirt.

Drunkard’s Cask [Limerick]

A drunkard put a cask atop his car
so he wouldn't always have to find a bar.
Under that kind of weight --
The car's range: km - 8,
But his own range per liter wasn't that far.

Snail [Limerick]

Photograph of a large snail shell taken near Simontornya, Hungary.
The snail's friends and family were critics,
claiming -- despite being hermaphroditic:
so, with two ways to coit --
neither did it exploit,
but read books in its shell, strange & cryptic.

Winter Sunlight [Tanka]

Photograph of the Pest side of Budapest taken from Gellért Hill.
low winter sun
shines upon the city
while residents
walk shadow-dimmed streets
and fluffy clouds grow angry.

Crow Mind [Kyōka]

Photograph of a crow atop an outdoor lighting fixture at Tokyo's Imperial Palace.
crow on lamppost 
contemplates a CAW!
but is silenced
by a morsel clamped
in its beak.

Little Blue [Haiku]

Photograph of a blue Chicory flower, taken near Kolsay Lake in Kazakhstan.
from a gliding boat,
a little blue flower spied
as all else blurs.

Nature’s AC [Haiku]

Photograph of a small cascade between and around mossy rocks taken on the Kolsay Lake hike in Kazakhstan.
water rolls past
moss green rocks;
hikers pause in cool.

Tree Hell [Tanka]

pine cone wedged
in a rotten sleeper,
on derelict tracks,
may become a tree
and made into sleepers.

BOOK: “New Comic Limericks” ed. by Ivanette Dennis

New Comic LimericksNew Comic Limericks by Ivanette Dennis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This anthology consists of 63 pages of whimsical limericks with amusing cartoon illustrations by Louis Marak. There aren’t laugh-out-loud yucks to be had here, but the wordplay of these poems is clever and the limericks are more well-crafted than most. It should be pointed out that there is nothing risqué in the collection either. The most best-known limerick writers included are Ogden Nash, Edward Lear, Gelett Burgess, and Charles Barsotti. [Incidentally, the most famous writers included are Rudyard Kipling, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., and Robert Louis Stevenson.]

The pieces take a wide variety playful approaches to the limerick from eye rhymes, slant rhymes and the shape poetry of Charles Barsotti.

If you’re interested in limericks and wordplay, there is a lot to learn from the examples presented in this anthology.

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Dandelion [Limerick]

“Spring has lined all roads with dandelions.”
At this a young girl started cryin’
You see, to her ear,
‘Twas rational fear,
For she was afraid of Dandy Lions.