Lecherous Limericks - Isaac Asimov

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ISAAC

ASIMOV

^^

₁₀₀

original

limericks

^^

by

the

bestselling

author

of

THE

SENS^QUS

DIRTY

OLD

MAN

A

TASTE

OF LECHEROUS

LIMERICKS

How

bitter

was

Joseph's existence

When

he

found

that his girl friend's insistence

Meant

thathe'd

have

to

wed

her

Before he could

bed

her

She was

simply

a

piece

de

resistance.

There

was

a young

woman

named

Susan

Who

found

it completely

amusin

9

To make

love to three

men

Although

who

did

what

when

Was

frequentlyrather confusin'.

A

woman

who

livedinSt.

Paul

Had

breasts

undeniably

small

Her

husband

growled, "Dear,

Why

not

burn your

brassiere?

THE EARLY

ASIMOV,BookOne

THE EARLY

ASIMOV,Book Two

PEBBLE

IN

THE SKY

THE

STARS,LIKE

DUST

THE CURRENTS OF

SPACE

THE CAVES OF

STEEL

THE END

OF

ETERNITY

THE

MARTIAN

WAY

THE NAKED

SUN

EARTH

IS

ROOM ENOUGH

NINE

TOMORROWS

NIGHTFALL

THE

GODS THEMSELVES

THE

BEST

OF

ISAAC

ASIMOV

LECHEROUS

LIMERICKS

REALM

OF

ALGEBRA

REALM

OF

NUMBERS

Andtheseanthologies edited by Isaac Asimov:

THE

HUGO

WINNERS,

VolumeI

STORIES

FROM

THE

HUGO

WINNERS,

VolumeII

MORE

STORIES

FROM

THE

HUGO

WINNERS,

VolumeIII

WHERE

DO

WE

GO FROM

HERE?

BEFORE

THE

GOLDEN

AGE,Book1

BEFORE

THE

GOLDEN

AGE,Book2

X/echerous

Xyimericks

by

Isaac

Asimov

With

Illustrations

by

Mort

Gerberg

ORIGINAL

HARDCOVER

EDITION.

A

Fawcett Crest Book reprinted by arrangementwith WalkerPublishingCompany, Inc.

Copyright

©

1975 by Isaac Asimov

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 75-7922 Printedin the United States ofAmerica

First printing:

May

1976

r_o

my

_wife

The

limerick is a stylized verse

form and

is as

me-ticulously structured as the sonnet. Consider the limi-tationsas far as the

form

aloneisconcerned:

1. It

must

consist of five lines:

no

more,

no

less, 2.

The

rhyme scheme must

be a, a, b, b, a.

That

is,

the first, second, and fifth lines

must

rhyme.

The

third

and fourth lines

must

rhyme

also, but they

must

have

a different

rhyme from

that of the first, second,

and

fifth lines.

3.

The

first, second,

and

fifth lines

must

consist of three feet each; that is, each

must

contain three

stressed syllables.

The

third

and

fourthlines

must

con-sist of two. This

means

there

must

be thirteen feet to the limerick

—

no

more,

no

less

—

distributed

among

thelinesexactly asIhaveindicated.

4.

The

typical foot of the limerick is an anapest. That is, itconsists of

two

unstressed syllablesfollowed

by a stressed one: dih-dih-DAH. All thirteen feet of the limerick can be anapests, but it is quite usual for

one or

two

of the initial feet in the lines tobe iambic;

that is, to consist of one unstressed syllable followed

byastressedone:

dih-DAH.

5.

The

rhyme

may

be masculine, involving asingle syllable such as "main" and "plain"; orit

may

be

fem-inine, using

two

or even threesyllables, such as

"mea-sure" and "treasure" or "healthier"

and

"wealthier."

Therefore, thelastfoot in aline

may

be dih-dih-DAH,

dih-dih-DAH-dih, or even dih-dih-DAH-dih-dih.

The

two different sets of rhymes in the limerick can be

ei-ther both masculine, both feminine, or one masculine

and one feminine.

With

all thisinmind,here is the

rhythm

ofatypical limerick:

dih-DAH

dih-dih-DAH

dih-dih-DAH-dih

dih-dih-DAH

dih-dih-DAH

dih-dih-DAH-dih

dih-DAH

dih-dih-DAH

dih-dih-DAH dih-dih-DAH

dih-dih-DAH dih-dih-DAH

dih-dih-DAH-dih

If

you want

to see

what

this

rhythm

is in words, here is a limerick (notmine, alas) containing the pre-cise

rhythm

givenabove:

Becausein their haste,

They

usedlibrarypaste

Intheplaceofpetroleumjelly.

It is conventional to indent the third

and

fourth

lines, both because they are shorter than the other

three

and

because it is convenient to emphasize that thereisachangein

rhyme

forthose two.

What

is just as important as the metrical rigidity of

the limerickisthenatureofitscontent,

1.

The

limerick

must

represent a complete story,

with a beginning, a middle,

and

anend. This, initself,

is a neat trick considering that the longest legitimate

limerick can only have forty-nine syllables

and

that it canbe as short as thirty-four syllables.

The

limerick I

have quoted above tells the tale of the appalling

mis-fortune that

overcame two young

lovers

and

does it

completelyin fortysyllables.

2.

The

limerick

must

be humorous; that is, if it is

tobe areallimerick,

and

notmerely asetoflines that just

happen

tohavethe limerickform.

For

instance, in

The

Yeoman

of the Guard,

W.

S. Gilbert includes a

songthatbegins as follows:

A

man who

would

woo

afair

maid

Should'prenticehimselfto the trade.

He

shouldstudyallday

Inmethodical

way

How

toflatter,cajole,

and

persuade.

As

far as

rhyme and

meter are concerned, this is a perfect limerick

—

but only as far as those are

con-cerned. It is neither complete nor funny; nor, to

do

3.

At

least part of the

humor

should be expressed

by the cleverness or unexpectedness of the rhymes.

Here, for instance, is a limerick that I recently

made

up

for the Gilbert and Sullivan Society of

New

York

(of

which

I

am

a

member)

A

certain unmusicalPersian

Had

acurioussort of perversion.

He

thoughtthatthepart

That

was

words

was

by Art

And

was

surethat thetuneswereGilbertian.

This is an "in" limerick and not for general

con-sumption, because only the Gilbert and Sullivan

fa-natics

would

know

at once that "Art"

was

Sir Arthur

Sullivan;

and

that to think that thelibretto of the great operettas

was by

Sullivan and the music by Gilbert

was

the ultimate in perversion of all that is holy

and

proper.

Yet

even a profound Gilbert-and-Sullivanian,

hear-ing the initial rhymes of "Persian" and "perversion"

would

not be likely to guess that I

was

holding "Gil-bertian" in reserve.

Naturally, rhymes of this sort cannot be used in serious poetry because they elicit laughter in

them-selves

and

can therefore only be used in comic verse. It follows from this that the limerick is not, and is

never intended to be, serious poetry. In fact, so firmly

has the limerick established itself as comic verse, that

any poet attempting towrite serious poetry in the

lim-erick meter, even if he used only the

most somber

of

rhymes, or

no rhymes

at all,

would

find it difficult to

be taken seriously.

The

dih-dih-DAH,

dih-dih-DAH

of the limerickhasswallowed

up

gravitycompletely.

4.

The humor

should be vulgar and should deal

with actions and words concerning which society

pre-tends nonexistence

—

reproduction, excretion, and so

on. This is not an absolute requirement

and

you

can, indeed, have "clean" limericks.

My

limerick aboutthe

unmusical Persian is an example. Clean limericks,

however, lack flavor, like vanilla ice

cream

or

pound

cake.

They

are perfectly edible, but, to

my

taste, are

tame, flat, and unsatisfying.

The

"vulgar" limerick (usually called the "dirty"

limerick) has its value becauseto the

humor

of

rhyme

and the challenge of metrical rigidity it adds the relief

of release.

You

can relax, for the space of

some two

score syllables, the bonds of social

decorum

that hold

you

in thrallmostofthetime.

The

sad tale ofthe

hon-eymoon

couple

named

Kelly is

an example

of

com-pletelysuccessful vulgarity.

5.

Many

limericks end the first line with a proper noun, of eitherapersonor a place.

Such

propernouns

come

in all kinds of sound patterns

and

give

you

a

starting platform.

You

then need to find only two rhymes toit. If the proper

noun

is difficult to rhyme,

the limerick

becomes an

exercise in ingeniuty. Here,

for instance, isa limerick {not

my

own)

that goes:

A

woman who

lived

on

Antigua

Once

said toher mate,

"What

apig

you

are!"

He

answered,

"My

queen,

way

that they

become

—

and hilariously

un-expected. This

makes

the limerick satisfactory, for, ideally, the limerick shouldberecited, and the written

form

is merely a guide to minimize forgetfulness.

Sometimes, the directions for the spoken version are

made

explicit in the written version as

when

the last

words of lines

two

and five in the limerick above are written"pigua" and "figua."

This sort of misspelling is permissible, but it should

be used very parsimoniously. It can be insulting to the

reader,

and

it can degenerate into a cheap snatch at

orthographic humor.

6.

Many

limericks start off: 'There

was

a

young

woman

of

—

" (or old

man,

young

man,

old

woman,

and

many

other variations).

Here

is a limerick (not

mine) of this type:

There

was

a

young

lady of

Yap

Withpimplesallover her

map.

But

in herinterstices

Therelurkedafarworsedisease

Thatis

commonly known

astheclap.

This is complete, vulgar,

and

contains one of the

cleverest rhymes I have

come

across: "interstices" and "worse disease."

And

yet the limerick falls short of perfectionbecausethe clever

rhyme comes

in the third

and fourth lines.

The

laugh

comes

there

and

the fifth

lineverges

on

the anticlimactic.

Let

me

stress, though, that the first line of a limer-ick need notbe "There

was

a

young

woman

of

—

"

and

theend ofthefirst lineneednotbe a proper noun. Let

the other requirements be fulfilled, and these first line

failures are forgiven and, indeed, are not even

no-ticed.

As

I said earlier, limericks should be recited. Well

recited, they are funnier than they can possibly be in

coldprint

—

butthere areprecautions

you must

take.

1.

For

heaven's sake, don't recite a limerick unless

you are sure

you

are syllable perfect. If

you

forget

and

stop, allvalue is lost. If

you

forget and improvise and

come

out with a syllable too few or too

many,

the

ef-fectis greatlyweakened.

2. In reciting the limerick, emphasize the rhythm and

rhyme

just alittle bit. You're not supposed to

do

this in reading serious poetry, but a limerick isn't

serious poetry.

By

proper emphasis you get across the

humorous

aspects of the limerick

more

efficiently. It

helps in this respect if each line ends at a natural pause, if the words

do

not "run on" without a natural

pause

from

oneline tothe next.

3. I have

my

own

private feeling that a limerick

should be occasionally sung, if

you

have the voice for

it. Limericks are an

Anglo-American

tradition, and so

are comic songs,

and

why

not

combine

the two?

My

own

favorite tuneforlimericks is the onetowhichthe Gilbertian

"A

man

who

would

woo

a fair maid" is sung

(may

the shade of Sullivan forgive me!). If

you

many

them

one whole

pall.

The

most effective limerick is almost always the

one

you

recite first.

The

funniest limerick inthe world

willget

no more

than asnickerif it

comes

fifth.

I mentioned, earlier, the limerick as an

Anglo-American

tradition. I have

no

doubt that limericks

can be written in almost any language, but I have the feeling that

no

language other than Englishcan create

the limerick as easily, as numerously, or as

humorous-iy.

The

fact thatthe

form

and meterare sorigid

means

that the story

you want

to tell

must

be shuffled a bit,

adjusted, molded, shaped.

A

syllable

must

be added

here and dropped there.

The

result is that

you

must be

ready at all times with a set of

synonyms and

substi-tute phrases.

As

ithappens, English hasthe largest vocabulary of

any language. It is strongly idiomatic and has an

al-most anarchically loose spelling and

grammar.

All

this

means

that English is precisely the kind of triple-jointedlanguage

you

needforendless adjustmentuntil, finally, it folds

up neady

into the five-line, two-rhyme

limerick.

Finally,where

do

/

come

into allthis?

Well, I

am

alimericist. There's

no

such word, as far

as Iknow. Ihave coined itmyself, and it means, as is

obvious, "one

who

writes limericks." I've been doing

it for

many

years, but recently it fell into

my

head to

startwriting

them

down

and finally

(when

I

had

made

up enough

of them) tohave a collection of

them

pub-lished.

As

faras I

know

therehasbeen

no

collection of lim-ericks

by

a single author (other than thoseof

Edward

Lear,

who

started the craze) ever published. In fact,

most

successful limericks are of disputed or even

anonymous

authorship. Let

me

bethefirstthento

pro-duce a sizable

book

of completely original limericks

(barring always accidental or subconscious

duplica-tions in part).

The

limericks included in this book, let

me

say at

once,are vulgar,

and

almost allof

them

areconcerned

with sex. If

you

are going to be offended

by

"dirty"

limericks, please put the

book

down

—

it is not

my

wish to offend you.

However, there is vulgar

and

vulgar.

A

limerick

can be merely vulgar without being clever. It can

reach forshock valueonly, be

more

unpleasant thanit

hasto be, repellentoreven nauseating.

I have tried neverto overstep the bounds Ihave set myself. If

my

limericks are vulgar, they are

light-hearted

and

never

more

vulgar than they have to be.

Most

ofall, Iearnestlytrust thateachlimerick is

more

clever

and

witty than it is vulgar, and that is

what

counts. I can't

hope

to please each reader with each

and

every limerick, but

my

gamble

is that almost

every reader will find at least a large portion of the

limericks amusing.I'llsettleforthat.

Ihave takentheliberty,

by

theway, ofadding titles

ones, and, with luck, it

may

even add to the humor. I

have also added footnotes where necessary, to explain

ausage, pointout aflaw,orgivean account oforigin.

One

last plea

Don't try to read the

book

at a sitting. Just read till

you

feel yourself stop laughing.

Then

put it aside and

try it again after at least a twenty-four-hour rest.

The

book

will

seem

funnier, and will also last longer that

way.

Xvecherous

There

was

a

sweet

girlof

Decatur

Who

went

tosea

on a

freighter.

She

was

screwed by

the

master

—

An

utter disaster

—

This

one

marked

the beginning. I

composed

it

on

board

the

Queen

Elizabeth II

when

returning

from

avisit to

Great

Britain in June, 1974.

When

I recited it,

everyone

at the table laughed. Since

that time I

have

been

writing

down

limericks. I

wasn't

going

to let myself forget

them and

lose laughs.

Notice,

by

the

way,

the use of the

term

screwed.

In

these permissive times,

we

all

know

thatthe

word

fucked

can

be

freely

used

and

print-ed.

However,

as

a matter

of principle, I

always

use a less vulgar

word

or

phrase

in place of a

There

was a young

woman

of

Sydney

Who

could

takeitclear

up

to thekidney.

But

the thrust of

Alphonse

Barely

reached

toher

mons

So

he

leftherunsatisfied,

didney?

The

firsttwd*lines

were

given

me

as a challenge

by

the writer

Lin

Carter at a

meeting

of the

Trap

Door

Spiders, a club to

which

we

both

belong. I

completed

it in just a

few

minutes, getting that

crucial last

rhyme

(which

is "didn't

he?"

in full)

at once.

Don

Bensen,

another

member

of the

Trap

Door

Spiders

and

a crackerjack limericist in

his

own

right, suggested the use of the

name

Al-phonse, in place of a

more

tortured

rhyming

con-struction that I had.

The

mons

is, of course, the

mons

Veneris,

which

is the

padded

region just

A

woman

from

South

Philadelphia

Once

found

herselfleft

on

theshelfia.

No

one

wanted

her

wares

But

she muttered,

"Who

cares?"

And

cheerfully

played

withherselfia.

Limericks

feed

on

themselves. I start quoting a few,

and

then I

am

likely to

be

challenged.

At

a

librarian's convention, I got a

few

laughs

and

then the beautiful

blonde

wife of

one

of

my

pub-lishers

dared

me

to

base

it

on

her place of birth,

Philadelphia.

The

above

is the result

(though

the

fictional

woman

of the limerick has

nothing

in

common

with

the

gorgeous damsel

who

elicited

it).

She

asked

for it,

by

the

way, because

she ex-pected

no

rhymes

for Philadelphia,

and

of course

I

could

supply none.

However,

I could

make

up

a

few. It's

not

a

good

idea, in general, to

make

use

of

non-words

forthe sake of the

rhyme, but

some-times

you can

get

away

with it

—

as I think I did

HE

DANGERS OF DRINK

There

was

a

young

man

from

Poughkeepsie

Who,

whenever

he

gotslightly tipsy,

Would

whip

outhis tool

And

attack, like

a

fool,

Any

girl

who

was

breasty

and

hipsy.

At

the

annual

banquet

of the

Baker

Street

Ir-regulars (a

group

of Sherlock

Holmes

enthusi-asts, of

which

I

am

a

member)

on

January

10,

1975, I recited the limerick

on

Philadelphia to

the delight of

one

of the

men

at the table

who

was

from

that city.

Whereupon

another

man

at the

table

who

felt his

own

hometown

slighted, said,

"How

about

Poughkeepsie?"

Well,

why

not?

rOOK,

EVERYBODY!

A

certain

young

fellow

named Vaughn

Once

feltirresistibly

drawn

To

exhibiting

fun

That

involved

more

than

one

So

he screwed

his bestgirl

on

thelawn.

"Vaughan"

is

pronounced

in

such

a

way

as to

rhyme

with

"drawn"

and

"lawn," of course.

There

is a

tendency

to

want

to write the

two

rhyme words

as

"draughan"

and

"laughan"

there-fore, and, indeed,

when

I first

wrote

down

the

limerick, that is exactly

what

I did.

On

further

consideration,

however,

I decided that the

mis-spelling

adds nothing

to the recited limerick,

and

adds

a

moment

of confusion to the reading of the

written one.

The

trifle of

fun

at the misspelling

A

man

from

thesmallIsleof

Wight

Once

went on

a

jar eclipseflight.

The

weather

was

bad

Girls

were

not to

be

had

And

the

Moon

veered

away

out

ofspite.

I

was

discussing the possibility of arranging a

cruise to see

an

eclipse in

some

far-flung portion

of the ocean,

and

there

was

naturally talk

about

the

chance

of

bad

weather.

There were

astron-omers

among

us, so I recitedthe above, adjusting

it to the audience.

There were

three catastrophes,

you

see. First, the

weather

was

bad. Second,

one

could

not find sexual consolation,

and

I

could

see that all the

astronomers

felt that

was

worse than

bad

weather

—

but

what

could

I find still

worse

for the last line. I

had

paused

after the fourth line

and

let

them

wonder

for

a second

and

then

recit-ed

the fifth line

with

an

air of exasperation;

and

the astronomers, recognizing that this

had

to

be

worst of all,

broke

up.

The

Isle of

Wight

is in the English

Channel

just south of

Southampton.

It is only

147

square milesin area, soit'sfairtocallitsmall.

A

certain

hard-working

young

hooker

Was

such

an

enchanting

good-looker,

There were

fights

f

mongst

thefuzz

Over whose

turn it

was

To

pinch

her,

and

frisk her,

and book

her.

The same

gibup

referred to in

connection

with

Limerick 6

went

to dinner at

one

of

New

York

City's classier hotels afterward,

and

there

was

much

despondent

conversation over the level of the prices.

"Oh,

well," said

one

of the gentlemen,

determined

to

look

at the bright side, "I under-standthe

hookers

hereareveryrefined."

Well, to the true limericist almost

any

casual

comment

is

an

invitation to

go

off into a

brown

study,

which

means

that

you

are

working

your

way

through

the alphabet searching for rhymes, I

ended

with

the limerick above,

which

cheered

them

up

somewhat.

i?ETRIBUTION

There

was

a

young

man

named

Sam

Stover

Who

prayed

for

a

girlto

Jehovah.

She

appeared

on

his lap

And

gave

him

theclap

Now

that sort ofprayerisallover.

Originally, I

wrote

this limerick

around

the

name

of a personal

and

much-beloved

friend of

mine;

one

of the best

guys

in the world.

Every-body

laughed;

he

didn't. Well,

my

friend is

worth

more

to

me

than

a million limericks, but I didn't

want

to

throw

the limerick

away

either.

So

I

All

was

wellwiththe

Dowager

Duchess

When

trappedinthe

mad

rapisfs clutches.

Till

he

turned

on

the light,

Took

one

look, said

good

night

So

shehit

him

with

one

ofhercrutches.

n*~

Note

the

economy

of the limerick form. This is

a limerick version of a

well-known

joke

about

a

pogrom

in a

Russian

town

in the old

days

during

which

a cossack burst into a

house

and

an-nounced

his intention of raping every

female

in

the place.

The

young

daughter

of the

house threw

herself

forward

and

said,

"Do

as

you

please with

me

but spare

my

poor

maiden

aunt."

Whereupon

the

maiden

aunt

pushed

her aside

and

said,

"Lis-ten,

who's running

this

pogrom,

you

or this nice

man?"

Properly told, the joke

can be

made

to last

half

an

hour.

The

limerick tells it in forty-one syl-lables.

ONVENEENT

IN

A

PINCH

There

was

a young

lady

named

Hunt

Who

performed

the

unusual

stunt

Of

screwing

by

mail

When

she

was

injail

For

she

had a

detachablecunt.

I

suppose

it is obligatory to

have

one

limerick

at least that

makes

use of the

Anglo-Saxon

term

for the

female

pudendum.

The rhyme

scheme

here offers

no

chance

for cleverness

—

masculine

throughout

and

as

soon

as thefirstline ends,

any-one

over the

age

of ten

knows

exactly

what

the

last

word

in the limerick willbe.

With

rhyme

out

of the

way,

the value of the limerick lies entirely inthegrotesquerieof the image.

Incidentally, in

doing

the limerick, I hesitated

long over the third

and

fourth lines for

which

I

had

the alternative:

Of

screwing

long distance

At

her lover's insistence

The

advantage

was

that the feminine

rhyme

would

slightly

overcome

the plainness of the

rhyme

scheme;

the disadvantage

was

that "screw-ing

by

mail"

was

a

far

more

colorful

image

than

"screwing

long

distance."

Incidentally, if

you can

improve

on

any

of

these limericks, let

me

know.

In a

second

(en-larged?) edition, I

may

introduce

changes

with

credit. Please,

however,

consider

improvements

only in the direction of increased cleverness of

in-o

VERDOING

IT

There

was

a

young

woman

named

Clare

Within

genitalslackingin hair.

What

caused

this affliction

Was

sexualfriction

Which

left

them

the

worse

for thewear.

My

first attempt at thislimerick

had

the

second

line read,

"Whose

vagina

was

lacking in hair." I

think that that is a

much

superior line

but

my

wife, a physician,

on

seeing the limerick wouldn't

allow it

on

anatomical

grounds.

To

substitute

"genital regions"

gave

me

too

many

syllables to

handle, so I

compromised

in a

somewhat

unsatis-factory

way,

and

tried the

young

woman

a

second

TWoDESTY

VICTORIOUS

Another young

woman

named

Clare

Would

walk

around

perfectly bare,

Saying, "AllthatI

show

Are

my

publics,

you

know,

For

my

privatesare

covered

withhair."

In using a personal

name

to initiate the

rhyme

scheme,

it is

important

to use

one

that is as

sim-ple

and

common

as possible.

The more

nearly

un-usual (or

even

impossible) a

name

is, the

more

clearly it is there only to serve as

a

third

rhyme

for

something

that

has

no

third

rhyme,

and

the limerickwithers.

TVo

TIME

OUT

"I

am

just/9

moaned

a

girl

from

Racine,

U

A

perpetual

motion machine.

Ican'thelpit. Imust.

For

Iservice thelust

Of

a

sex-starved

young

U.S.

Marine."

A

limerick starts

sometimes

simply

because

a

common

phrase

occurs to

you

thatis a triple

ana-pest

and

therefore a perfect limerick line.

"A

per-petual

motion machine"

is

an

example

for its

meter

is

dih-dih-DAH

dih-dih-DAH

dih-dih-DAH.

The

true limericist at

once

goes into

spasms

trying to build the other four lines

about

it.

My

firsteffort

was

as follows:

There

was

a

young

fellow

from Queens

Whose

perpetual

motion machines

Would

move

forward by

jerks

For

he

keptin the

works

The

best

Mexican

high-jumping

beans.

This

was

unsatisfactory

because

it

was

clean,

for

one

thing.

For

another the

phrase

"Mexican

high-jumping beans"

is impermissible.

We

speak

of

"Mexican jumping

beans."

To

insert "high"

merely

to

add

a syllable

and

make

the line a

triple-anapest introduces a clear artificiality that

R

EWARD

OF

INDUSTRY

A

woman

most

gorgeously stacked

Thought

screwing a

gloriousact.

So, for finding

a

niche

For

those

who

were

rich,

She

was

diamonded, minked,

Cadillacked.

(42)

It's

odd

the things that

hold

you

up

sometimes.

The

line

"She

was diamonded,

minked,

Cadil-lacked" is

a

triple anapestthat I

knew

would be

a

good

last line

when

I

thought

of it. I

had

very

lit-tle trouble thinking

up

the first four lines,

but

then I

was hung up

for quite a while

over

the

spelling of "Cadillacked."

When

recited, the

word

causes

no

trouble,

and

its

meaning

is perfectly

plain.

You

have

three

nouns

associated with

suc-cessful ladies of easy virtue,

each

one

of

which

is

treated as

an

intransitive verb.

But

whereas

you

can add an

"ed"

to

diamond

and

mink

without

trouble,

how

do

you add

an "ed"

to Cadillac,

without

making

it "Cadillaced"

and have

the

sec-ond

"c"

become

soft. I finally

added

a

"k"

and

took

the

chance

of

having

the

word become

unrec-ognizable atfirstglance.

s

HOCKING!

There

isa

young

woman

from Riga

With

morals

depressingly

meager.

She's

seduced

twicea

week

By

a lecherous

Greek

If

"seduced"

isthe

word

when

she's eager.

Shortly after

composing

the

above

limerick, I

met

a

young

woman

I

knew

whose

last

name

rhymed

with Riga. I

promptly

recited the

limer-ick, carefully substituting her

name

at the

end

of

the first line. I

expected

laughter

and

charming

embarrassment

and

a

face turning attractively

pink.

It didn't

happen.

She

just turned wistful

and

said,

"Oh,

I wish that

were

true." (Naturally, out

of a sense of

sympathy and

friendship, I offered tohelpout,

but

shesaidIwasn't

Greek.)

A

POOR

EXAMPLE

An

Olympian

lecher

was

Zeus,

Always

playing

around

fast

and

loose,

With one

hand

in the bodice

Of some

likely

young

goddess

And

the other preparing to goose.

Zeus

was, of course, thechief of the

gods

living

on

Mount

Olympus

in the

Greek

mythology,

and, indeed,

no

goddess,

nymph,

or

mortal

woman

was

safe

from

him

if

we

go by

the myths.

What

started the limerick, though,

was

the irresistible

rhyming

of "bodice"

and

"goddess."

Once

that

The

classic

A

young

woman

from

South

Carolina

Placed

fiddle strings 'cross her vagina.

With

theproper-sized

cocks

What

was

sex

became

Bach's

Toccata

and Fugue

in

D

Minor.

The

composition

Toccata

and

Fugue

in

D

Minor

by Johann

Sebastian

Bach

is very well

known, and

it

was

the first

segment

of

Walt

Dis-ney's

famous

Fantasia.

When

the phrase

occurred

to

me,

and

I realized that its

dih-DAH

dih-dih-DAH

dih-dih-DAH-dih

would

make

aperfect

lim-erickline, I

had

to

have

therest.

Then,

when

the limerick

was

done, I

was

con-vinced I

had

achieved a classic at last.

Never

will

I

be

able to

do

abetter

one than

this. It tippedthe

scale.

With

the limericks I then had, I tackled a

publisher,

and

the

wheels

were

set in

motion

for

t±

GOOD MOVE

"On

the

beach"

saidJohn, sadly, "There's

such

A

thing as revealing too

much"

So

he

closed

both

hiseyes

At

the

ranks

of barethighs

And

felthis

way

through

them by

touch.

In

the first version, the last line

read

"And

felt his.

way

past

them

by

touch" but

my

wife the

doc-tor disallowed it.

My

wife is a shy

woman,

retir-ing, introverted, sweet, lovable,

and

of

unim-peachable

virtue

—

but

let

her

at a limerick,

and

she

becomes

a fierce influence in the direction of

increased vulgarity.

She

pointed

out

that to feel one's

way

past

something

might

mean

giving it a

wide

berth

and

using

your hands

only to

make

sure there is

noth-ing there, with the least fugitive

touch

impelling

you

farther

outward.

Lest

anyone

suspect

John

of

being that

much

of a fool I

had

to

change

"past"

,H,

THOSE

SENSITIVE

FINGERS

A

young

violinist

named

Biddle

Played

exceedinglywell

on

thefiddle.

Yet

'twixt

women

and

art

'Twas

the girls

won

his heart

Hands

down

and hands up

—

and hands

middle.

I

composed

a version of this limerick

on

Feb-ruary 1, 1975,

making

it

an

"in" limerick

on

be-half of

NON

(the

National

Organization of

Non-Parents), for

which

I give talks

now

and

then. It

seemed

to

be

greeted with general approval

and

laughter,

and

this so

bucked

me

up

thatI referred

to the

young

woman

sitting

on

my

right as

"a

sex-ual tornado."

Now

you must

understand

that the

young

woman

was

beautiful

and

had

a figure that

had

to

be

seen to

be

believed

(and

was

well

worth

seeing

even

after

you

believed)

and was

dressed

in

an

outfitthatdid

nothing

toobscureits value.

Nevertheless after I left, there

was

a big hassle

at the

meeting

over

my

"sexist

remark"

and

that

was

reported in

The

New

York

Times

of

Febru-ary 4, 1975.

My

speech (a

good

one)

was

ig-nored. Well, as a

matter

of fact, limericks are,

by

and

large,

male

chauvinist in nature (certainly

mine

are).

So

I

hope

that

no

feminist lacking a

sense of

humor

has

picked

up

this

book;

if so I

hope

she has

put

it

down

again long ago. If she

has

gotten thisfar, please

put

it

down

—

and

don't

How

AWFUL

A

Sultansaid sadly,

"One

strives

To

pleaseall

my

fifty-sixwives.

But, alas, intromission

Gives

me

the condition

That's

commonly

known

asthehives.'

The

life of a conscientious limericist

who

is

seeking for respectable publication is hard.

One

can

get

away

with all kinds of sexual

innuendo

and

naughty

phrases,

but

one

must

avoid other,

more

serious

forms

of offense.

For

instance,

my

first attempt at the first line began,

"A Mormon

said sadly. . . ."

But you know,

Mormons

don't

practice

polygamy

anymore,

and

they

might

not

think this

was

funny,

and

I wouldn't

blame

them.

Then,

too, I

know

some

nice

Mormons

with

whom

I

want

to stay

on

the very best of terms.

My

next attempt was,

"An

Arab

said sadly. . . ."

And

then I thought,

"No."

After all,

some

Wall

Street friend

might be

after

some

oil dollars,

and

I wouldn't

want

to

queer

the deal.

So

a Sultan it

became.

There

are

no

sultans

around any

more

OMPENSATION

Said

a

woman

with

open

delight,

"My

pubic

hair'sperfectly white.

I

admit

there's

a

glare

But

thefellows don't care.

They

locate it

more

quicklyat night."

My

first version

had

it, "Said a

woman

named

Jennifer Bright,"

but

there's

no

point using a

proper

noun

that

adds nothing

to the wit

and

that

seems dragged

in

simply

to supply a

rhyme

—

// it

can be

avoided.

22

IDE

EFFECT

"What

a

shame"

said

a winsome young

miss,

"That

an

organ

thatbrings

me

such

bliss

With

itsdelicate

touch

Should

be

wasted

on

such

An

unpleasant

production

aspiss."

Fun's fun,

but

the

humor

is lost

sometimes

when

it touches too close to

home.

The

reaction

of quite a

few

listeners

on

whom

I tried out this

limerick

was

a very serious, "That's right. It is a

shame."

There

seems

a general feeling that the

evolutionary process in placing so large a

func-tional overlap in the genital/excretory

organs

was

practicing

an unwise

economy.

Incidentally, all the limericks in the

book

have

been

consumer-tested.

There

are

none

that I

LA

FREUD

In her youth, exhibitionist

Annie

Was

frequently

spanked

by

her nannie.

That

is

why,

to thisday,

Some

psychiatristssay

She

is

fond

of

exposing

her fanny.

This

one

Iread to

my

wife the doctorwith

con-siderable trepidation.

Her

specialty

happens

to

be

psychiatry (I think she views

me

as

an

interesting

case),

and

I feared the

worst But

she

looked

up

from

the

book

she

was

reading, smiled,

nodded,

and

said,

"Very

good!"

I didn't

want

to press

my

luck, so I didn't ask

her if she

meant

that the limerick

was

metrically

jDon't

breathe

An

expert at kissin

9

and

dallyin9

Had

a prick quite like that ofa stallion.

His

success

would

be

cosmic

But

for

shortcomings

osmic

For

he reeked

very _{strongly of} scallion.

(60)

My

original first line

was

the very natural,

"There once

was

a stalwart Italian," but then,

on

rereading, it

began

to

seem

like a racist slur. I did

a lot of hesitating forI

hated

to lose the limerick,

and

then I

decided

to try for

an

alternate

rhyme.

It wasn't easy,

and

if

you

think

you can

do

better,

go

toit.

"Osmic"

is stretching a point.

Considering

that the

Greek

word

for "smell" is

"osme,"

then

"osmic"

clearly

means

"related to smell."

Unfor-tunately, it isn't listed in the dictionary with that

meaning.

I considered converting the third

and

fourth lines to:

He'd

be screwing

like hell If the girls couldn't smell

However,

I liked the

word

"osmic," regardless of the stupid dictionary,

and

I liked its

rhyme

with

"cosmic,"

which

has

no

other

unforced rhyme,

so

Wi

HAT

A

SHAME!

An

innocent

hooker

named

Agnes

Was

reduced

to

mere

tatters

and

ragness

Because

the

poor sweet

Kept on working a

street

That

was

laden with queers

and

with fagness.

Here

is

an

example

of

where

I part

company

with

my

audience.

I'm

proud

of this one. I

was

in

bed

watching

television

when

someone

mentioned

a character

named

Agnes,

and

I got to

work

and

when

I finished I

was

jumping

up and

down

in

bed

insheerecstasy.

There

are

no

unforced

rhymes

for

Agnes; not

one.

So

I

made

up

two words which

don't exist

but

which have

perfectly

obvious meanings,

are

perfect

rhymes,

are utterly unexpected,

and

are

clever.

And

all I get are gentle smiles.

No

one

ap-preciates sheer creativity. Well, the

heck

with all

Fit

for

his

work

A

rapist'sconvicted,

and

hence

is

Executed

forallhisoffenses,

Thereafter,indeed,

His

victims

agreed

That

the

man

was

well-hungin

both

senses.

(64)

One

of those

on

whom

I tried out this limerick

insisted that

he

had

heard

the last line

on

some

other limerick, I

asked

him

to repeat the entire

limerick,

but

he

couldn't.

This

left

me

in rather a

dilemma.

The number

of clever

but

vulgar notions is large,

but

not

un-limited,

and

I

am

bound,

every

once

in a while, to

think of

something

that

someone

else has

thought

of before. In fact, since I

have

read

many,

many

limericks in

my

time, I

may

even

think of a

limer-ick

no

longer actively

remembered and

reproduce

it, thinking, in all honesty, that it is

my

own.

If

anyone

recognizes a limerick in this

collec-tion

and

can

document

its prior

appearance

in

print, then Iwill eliminateit

from

future editions,

with

an

apology.

As

far as I

know,

however,

every limerick in this collection

was

personally

composed by

me,

with help only

where

indicated.

HE

COST

OF IGNORANCE

A

young

teacher

from

far-off

Bombay

Turned

down

a

requestfora lay

Nicely

couched

in

a

note,

Since thefellow

who

wrote

Had

spelled "intercourse" with

an

"a"

Well,

you

can't avoid it every time. Here's a limerick that's funnier to the

eye than

the ear,

be-cause the misspelling exists in the printed

form

but

cannot

be

indicated in the recital.

And

the

fact that "intercoarse" with

an

"a" suggests

some-thing "coarse"

would

naturally repel

a

delicately

HE

PROSPECTIVE

WIDOW

Said

a

man

from

Mobile,

Alabama,

"I'm displeased with

my

rolein life's

drama.

My

wife,

who's

a shrew,

Isn'twilling to

screw

And

she'ssureto outlive

me,

God

damma"

All right, I

succumbed

this time

and

altered

the spelling to

make

the

rhyme more

obvious. It

seems

to

me,

in this case, that the split-second

hesitation before

you

realize that

"damma"

is

HE

STARS

AND

STRIPES

FOREVER

Young

Jane

was

a

lollapalooza

Yet

no

one could

manage

to use her.

She

wouldn't

screw

with

them

Except

to the

rhythm

Of

the

marches

of

John

PhilipSousa.

Another one

of

my

favorites. After all it

com-bines grotesquerie of

image

with effective

and

un-expected

rhymes.

I don't get it like this all the

time. Incidentally,

you

will find "lollapalooza" in

The

American

Heritage Dictionary,

where

it is

characterized as slang

and

defined as

"Something

outstanding of its kind."

And

I respect

The

American

Heritage Dictionary

because

it

in-cludes

me

as

an

entry

on

page

77.

I'm

defined as

"Russian-born

American

biochemist, educator,

and

writer."

They

left out "limericist" but

no

ORETHOUGHT

A

fellow

from

Chicopee,

Mass.

Rejected another

man's

pass.

He

felt

some

attraction,

But

recalled that theaction

Might

well

prove

a

painin theass.

(72)

I

had

originally written the last line as

"Would

just

be

a pain in the ass," but

my

wife the doctor

shook

her

head

and

informed

me

that I

was

un-fairly limiting the

range

of

male homosexual

ac-tivity. Well, all I

know

about

such

things is

what

people tell

me.

So

I replaced the declarative with

the conditional.

Chicopee,

by

the

way,

forthose of

you

who

are

not

New

Englanders, is a

town

just north of

M\

USIC

LOVER

During

sex,

Mary's

moans

were

harmonic

From

high C,

down

by

chords, to the tonic.

So John

feltitunsordid

To

have

them

recorded In

sound

that

was

stereophonic.

I'm faking it here, for

I'm

a musical illiterate,

but I think that the

second

line

makes

sense.

The

dictionary says that the "tonic" is the keynote,

OOBAD

How

bitter

was

Joseph'sexistence

When

he

found

thathisgirlfriend'sinsistence

Meant

thathe'd

have

to

wed

her

Before he

could

bed

her.

She

was

simply

a

piecederesistance.

A

play

on

words!

A

play

on

words!

That's

an-other

one

of

my

vices:

puns

and word

play. In

this limerick, please

do

not try to display

your

knowledge

of

French

by

giving "piece

de

resis-tance" its

proper

pronunciation. If I

had wanted

you

to

do

that I

would

have

spelled it correctly,

with the accents.

Pronounce

it as if it

were

En-glish or thelimerick

rhythm

won't

holdup.

33

LOW

BUT

SURE

•

A

young

man

from

a lofty sierra

Found

sexboth a puzzle

and

terror.

But

he

met

with alass

In asimilarpass

And

they both learned

—

by

trial

and

error.

A

sierra is a

rough

and

craggy

mountain

ridge,

of course. If we're talking of the mountains, then

to

have

the

man

and

the lass

meet

in a similar

pass

sounds

as

though

it

might

be

a play

on

words. If it is, I didn't intend it

and

didn't

even

notice the possibility till long after the limerick

ALEDICTORIAN

A

luscious

young

studentat

Vassar

Was

hailedas

a

top-of-the-classer.

But

notin herstudies

You

oldfuddy-duddies

For

she

shone

as

a

greatpiece-of-asser.

Vassar

is the

well-known

woman's

college in

Poughkeepsie, of course. I

was

never there, but

years

ago

I

was

asked to lecture at

Smith

College,

an

equally

well-known

woman's

college in

North-ampton, Mass.

I

was

to

speak

on two

successive

days,

and

they offered to put

me

up

in the

wom-en's

dormitory

for the night. I could hardly wait

to get there.

They

did put

me

up

in the dormitory, too.

A

special

room

with its

own

special

door

to the

o

UCH!

The

crotch of

a

lady

from

Trenton

Was

tootight to

make

much

of

a

denton.

The

fellows

who

tried

Spread

the

news

far

and

wide

That

she

made

ofa hard-un,

a

bent-un.

I

was

held

up

here

on

a question of spelling.

The

American

Heritage Dictionary,

which

con-tains all the vulgarisms

known

to

man,

I think,

spells it "hard-on"

and

defines it as

"an

erection

of the penis." All I

can

say is that I've always

heard

it

sounded

as "hard-un"

and

have

taken it

L

AW

ABIDING

There

was

a

young

woman

named

Melanie

Who

was

asked by

a

man,

"Do

you

sell

any?

9

She

replied,

"No,

siree,

Igiveitfor free

To

sell it,

dear

sir, is

a

felony."

As

you

might

guess, I

was

challenged

(on

Feb-ruary 5,

1975

—

I

happen

to

remember

the

day)

by

a

young

woman

named

Melanie

to

make

use

of her

name

in a limerick. I

made

one up

on

the

spot

and

recited it to her. Its a tribute to the

free-and-easiness of the time that the

imputation

of all

sorts of vile actions to these delicate lassies gives

no

offense.

Melanie laughed

heartily

and had

me

repeat it so she

could

memorize

it.

By

the

way

—

some

of

you

may

want

to write

and

tell

me

that

prostitution is not a felony.

Don't

bother.

ETSSEENOW

There

was

a

young

woman

named

Susan

Who

found

itcompletely

amusiri

To

make

love to three

men

Although

who

did

what

when

Was

frequently ratherconfusin'.

Naturally, I repeated this to the first

young

woman

I

met

who

was

named

Susan.

She laughed

politely, then said,

"Oh,

I

could

figure it out, if I

HERAPEUTIC

EFFECT

Thanks

to sex,

a

young

woman

named

Carol

Looked

delightful inmodel'sapparel.

The

slimming

effect

Was

best, Isuspect,

When

her

man

had

her

over

a

barrel.

Wishful

thinking, I suppose,

because

I

wish

sex

were

slimming.

My

own

experience is that it sharpens the appetite for

food

as well.

Yo

HEAVE

HO

A

stableman, fresh

from

the

Ruhr,

Had

a daughter, delightful

and

pure.

It

seems

such

a

shame

That

herchiefclaim to

fame

.

Was

her greatskillatpitching

manure.

Years

ago,

when

I

was working

soberly at

my

desk

at the

medical

school (I taughtbiochemistry

there), a fellow faculty

member

said to

me

casu-ally,

and

for

no

earthly reason:

"She

was

only a stableman's daughter,

but

all the

horsemen

knew

'er."I stared at

him

blankly until

my

ear, in retro-spect, converted the last four syllables into "horse

manure";

and

there followed

one

of those strange

times,

when

you

simply

cannot

stop laughing

—

when

every

time

you

pause, recollection sends

you

into fresh

paroxysms

until the laughter,

feed-ing

on

itself, leaves

you

utterly exhausted.

So

I tried to build a limerick

about

the

remark, but

this is as close as I

came.

The

Ruhr,

by

the

way,

is a

famous

mining

region in northwestern

Germany.

One

has

one's

pride

Said

a young

man,

"Vm

reallydelighted

To

find that

my

love is requited

By

alltwenty-eight

Of

thegirls thatIdate.

Were

they fewer,

Yd

feelmyself slighted"

The

last

two

limericks

have

been

quite clean

by

the standards of this

book.

We'll

have

to

do

something about

that.

41

//eh,

HEH

There

was

an

old

man

from

theNile

Whose

sexualhabits

were

vile.

Yet

whenever

he'd score

The

women

all

swore

That

he

sure

made

perversion worthwhile.

Considering

that I

have

written a

book

entited

The

Sensuous

Dirty

Old

Man,

I

am

bound

to

uphold

the glory of that

honorable

profession.

In

fact, at a recent science fiction convention,

when

I

was engaged

in talking to the

young

women

in

my

usual

suave

and

courtly

manner,

one

of

them

pinned

a

badge

on

my

lapel,

which

read "Dirty

Old

Men

Need

Love,

Too."

I'm

not sure

why

on

earth she

thought

that

was

appropriate in

my

OoH,

LA,

LA

A

lovely

French

girl

from

Calais

Looks

great inher sheernegligee.

Delightful

and

chaste

She would

just suitthetaste

Of

the typical Gallic

gourmet.

Fortunately, I

am

not

backward

about

point-ing out

my

expertise.

The

three

rhyme

words,

"Calais," "negligee,"

and

"gourmet"

are

French

words, are at

home

in English, and,

though

they

are perfect

rhymes,

each

is different to the eye. It

is theselittlethings that

add

to the flavor of

limer-ick composition,

even

though

they

may

be

LEASANT

SURPRISE

A

colonialgirl,

sweet

and

sainted.

Was

by

war-striped

young

Indianstainted.

Later,

asked

of the ravages,

She

said of the savages,

"They

aren'tas

bad

asthey'repainted."

Even

when

a line scans perfectly, as does line

number

two

here:

"Was

by WAR-striped young

INdians

TAINTed,"

dih-dih-DAH dih-dih-DAH

dih-dih-DAH-dih, it

remains

possible for the

sound combinations

to

be

hard

to recite. Ifs a

difficultline to say,

and

yet I

had

to

cram

into ten

syllables the fact that they

were

Indians in

war

paint without using the

word

"paint,"

which

I