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Choose a famous poem and write it in limerick form, putting the title of the original poem at the top. Please fit your chosen poem into one limerick (five lines) only. See “How to Write a Limerick.” Post your limerick in the comments section below. See examples:
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Nothing Gold Can Stay (Frost)
The first green of nature is gold.
The hardest of colors to hold.
Her new leaf is a flower,
Bright and bold for an hour
Till the winter, the Frost and the cold.
—Mike Bryant
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Still I Rise (Angelou)
Oil pumps and then wells in my eyes.
Diamonds meet at the top of my thighs.
I have no room for gloom;
To the moon with all doom.
Like the hot air in lies, I will rise!
—Susan Jarvis Bryant
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“Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”
by Robert Frost
So there once was a woods that I knew
And its owner I knew about too.
On a cold, snowy night,
Such a beautiful sight
To behold as my fingers turned blue.
Excellent!
Perfect!
“This be the Verse”
By Philip Larkin
Your parents they fuck up your head,
And so life is bleak till your dead,
Fuck only fun,
Begetting no-one,
While the saracen takes over instead.
Made me laugh!love this one. It’s so light and uncensored! You kill me! Thanks!
Bantams in Pine Woods (Stevens)
Fat! Fat! Fat! Fat!
Portly poet in a henna hat!
Chief of Azcan,
Flee if you can!
My world is me and that’s that!
My Candle Burns at Both Ends (Edna St. Vincent Millay)
Consuming so quickly my candle
From both ends, it causes a scandal
To friend and to foe,
But oh, what a glow,
Like music from George Fredrick Handel!
Giggle-inducingly beautiful.
Expressive! Good one.
Ithaca (Cavafy)
I wandered and tasted the wine
Then searched for a place to dine
The doors were all locked
‘Cuz past eight o’clock
It’s Boston in sixty-nine
How is it, Dedee, that you know about the old Boston blue laws? The only reason they were revoked was that the politicians knew that they could collect more taxes that way.
I didn’t know the reason for the 8 o’clock closings. I recall the only places to eat were Jake Wirth’s and Athen’s Olympia in the theater district. Then in the 70’s, Cafe Florian on Newbury for a sandwich. Blue laws……I’m wistful for their return, especially a Sabbath, whatever day one chooses.
“The Raven”
by Edgar Allan Poe
It was midnight; I felt really sleepy.
As I longed for Lenore I got weepy.
Then along a bird fluttered,
“Nevermore” — all it uttered.
I’ve got company now — but it’s creepy.
Spookily hilarious! I love it!
Oddly, I thought of The Raven as a subject myself, but I couldn’t have matched this! Great stuff.
Funny.
LOVE it. LOL!
Daffodils (Wordsworth)
I wandered alone like a cloud,
seeing daffodils all in a crowd.
And now if Life glowers,
with thoughts of those flowers,
my inner eye’s suitably wowed.
Cleverly crafted. Well done!
This Is Just To Say
I’ve eaten the plums in the fridge.
I saved you not even a smidge.
They weren’t too old,
So sweet and so cold.
Forgive me, but they were delish.
Limerick plums with aplomb! I love em!
Good one! They begged to be eaten.
While the evening spreads out in the skies,
Let us look for the man in disguise
Etherized on a table.
If anyone’s able
To see him, I’ll sure be surprised.
Sorry — that was from “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S. Eliot.
Cynthia, I love yours and you have inspired me.
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (T.S. Eliot)
I beseech you, go eat a ripe peach.
Michelangelo’s art’s out of reach.
Ladies come and they go
And all those in the know
Know coffee won’t measure life’s breach.
“The Red Wheelbarrow”
by William Carlos Williams
On this wheelbarrow so much depends,
Planted there by the foraging hens,
….. And its brilliant red hue
….. Shines especially true
When it’s glazed with the rain that descends.
Anna, this is better than the original! Superb!
I totally agree! Williams could learn a bit about meter from Anna! (Oh — and thanks for your comment on my Prufrock, Susan. Yours is great!)
spot on.
Anna, you beat me to it:
so much on this barrow depends
it’s fiery with fair weather friends
but when there’s foul weather
it’s flocked by a feather
of dover cliff hue, on chickens
Yours deserves to be more famous than Williams’, in my opinion!
Thanks for the encouraging feedback! (Jack, I like your rendition as well)
Interestingly enough, I wrote a sonnet spinoff on The Red Wheelbarrow a couple of months ago, when my husband decided to purchase us a yellow wheelbarrow, though my heart had been set on red (in part because of Williams’ poem). Maybe I should submit it here to SCP…
This is particularly good because you have shown possibly the most overrated poem of the twentieth century to be what it really is. And your short lines, ending hue/true are superbly anapestic.
Caged Bird (Maya Angelou)
A bird in a cage cannot sing
In a country where freedom can’t ring.
Though you tweet and you tweet,
All your tweets they delete—
They assure you can’t say anything.
Sandi, you have taken this challenge to new heights in a limerick that packs one helluva punch on the cancel-culture front. Wonderful!
Thank you master-poet-extraordinaire! These little challenges are always a hoot to read!
Indeed!
Brilliant!
Yes, brilliant!
In Verona, where we lay our scene,
Civil blood makes the folk’s hands unclean.
R and J took their lives
And it ended their strifes.
R was sixteen and J was thirteen.
An accomplished one–very expressive.
Non Sum Qualis Eram Bonae Sub Regno Cynarae (Dowson)
To forget you, I took out some money
And hired an out-of-work Bunny.
Her kisses were warm
But I couldn’t perform,
So I guess I’ve been faithful, my honey.
That sounds like Dowson alright!
You are a funny and talented man; it certainly would have been interesting being one of your students.
Ode On a Grecian Urn
Though you’re empty there’s value untold
in the beauty of story on hold.
It’s the truth that you speak,
though it comes across Greek,
about being but not seeming old.
Very clever!
Thanks!
Summer Showers by Emily Dickinson
A drop fell on the apple tree,
That went to help bathe the sea.
The sunshine threw fete hung,
Were the birds Jocoser sung.
The breezes brought the birds bathed in glee.
This is nice!
Summer Showers by Emily Dickinson
A drop fell on the apple tree,
That went to help bathe the sea.
The sunshine threw fete hung,
Where the Jocoser birds sung.
The breezes brought the birds bathed in glee.
Trees – Joyce Kilmer
The tree I see
It comforts me
It aids
It shades
Reminds me that He died for me
‘Dust of Snow’ of Sir Robert Frost.
…
Dust of Snow
Amidst these shivering trees,
I stood still, becoming freeze,
Reciting winter’s tale;
Making my body temper curtail,
O, dust of snow in the frozen breeze.
Time standstill, nice word choice.
Not Waving but Drowning,
Stevie Smith
It wasn’t my arms I was waving, you cretin.
No deeper my head could I get in.
Do you think I would crave
Your attention and wave,
My head in the bag of cement it was set in?
Hilarity meets Stevie Smith poetry to produce a poem that speaks of immortartality with a wry nod to concrete poetry – I expect nothing less from a poet who has concrete ideals in this age of fixed ideas and ideals. Very well done, indeed!
i wanna do cadged bird … can i? … can i
imagining that i had wings
and owned the divine right of kings
i mewled and i whined,
the antifa kind,
for elephants on children’s swings.
“Hickory, Dickory, Dock”
by Tommy Thumb
Let us look at this rhyme and take stock.
It has something to do with a clock
In an animal house
With an up-running mouse
… What the hell is a dickory
dock?
Very funny!
Yes it is!
LOVE IT! LOL
Sympathy
Paul Lawrence Dunbar
Oh such anthropomorphisings
Open the door when a caged bird sings
caged bird will not flee.
They love where food is free.
Ignore all exit openings.
Wonderful word play
It had everything but the proper anapestic (or, possibly, amphibrachic) meter. Learn hat a limerick actually is.
Oh okay then … If I must…
When anthropomorphisings sing,
They seem to regret where they cling.
They batter at bars.
Scream out to the stars.
While Maya writes down everything.
Old Ironsides (Holmes)
The ship’s an unseaworthy bucket
And Congress just wants us to chuck it.
But in view of her fame
That would be a damned shame —
Let her sink in a squall off Nantucket.
Perfectly done, and great innovative rhymes!
There is a rather famous limerick with “Nantucket” as a rhyme-word in the longer lines, but somehow Joseph has managed to avoid the original “fuck it.”
They’re capable of anything, and nothing should surprise us at this point.
Tennyson’s “Charge of the Light Brigade”
“Let’s capture those guns!” Raglan said.
The cavalry charged on ahead.
The battle was gory –
They won fame and glory
But most of them ended up dead.
Fabulous!
Thanks Paul.
Brilliant!
I am loving this one, Jeff. When is the funeral? And what’s the dress code for a toad?
Thank you Jeff.
In Leek the toad is extinct
But for tyre-marks most indistinct.
A miserable morkin,
Too bald for a merkin,
If only poor Jeff hadn’t blinked.
Clever in its irony!
Thanks Sandi.
T S Elliot Animula
There once was a heavenly boy
Who was born full of life and joy,
As time passed his troubles grew,
His teeth fell out and his smile went south
-the poor misguided, lonely trout.
This is not a limerick of any sort at all.
Oh okay. Thank you for the feedback
I am not happy with the third line but I thought
the others conformed.
Are you familiar with the poem. it is one of my favourites
and I am rather sad that I have condensed it to that.
But I think it fits.
revised version-marginally better perhaps
There once was a heavenly boy
Born on earth full of life and joy
When he grew
His troubles did too
So sad about the boy
Thank you Mr CB Anderson
I think finally I have learned not to post in haste
“Toads” by Philip Larkin
With sadness I’m writing this ode,
On the death of a big, slimy toad.
For he got in the way,
Of my bike yesterday,
Now he’s splattered all over the road.
Ha! Excellent!
I agree!
Very funny!
Hilarious! Is the toad in the hole? I hope you gave him a good send off! 😉
leap of joy and you’ve become the toad..
Sheer brilliance, this one, and almost worth mashing the toad for.
As president of the Batrachophiliac Society (perverts, the lot of them), established in 1910, I must protest most vehemently at the impetuous levity with which the demise of Mr Toad has been treated in your column. I didn’t join SCP to read this sort of bilge (I thought it was the RSPCA).
A short promenade down the road,
As reveries lazily flowed.
Did he hear a croak?
Too late for the bloke,
The pavement, the shoes and the toad.
Now is the winter
Tewkesbury gave the Lancastrians what for.
Now with Edward, sprawled out on the floor,
Is some wench who admires
Him, whose passion he fires.
As for me, it’s his crown I adore.
Sea surface full of clouds / Stevens
As Tehuantepec’s shores I passed by,
I gazed down (being bored with the sky).
“So the sea’s blue,” I thought,
“… then again, maybe not.”
In five cantos I’ll tell you just why.
Ah, vous dirai-je
Mommy dear, I have just this to say:
I am fraught by the end of the day.
Dad insists that I think.
He will drive me to drink,
But with candy I shan’t go astray.