Occasional Limericks
by
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Chapter 1: The Beginning
“Once upon a time...” That is for another type of fantasy but is very closely related to “There once was a...” beginning for so many of those “naughty” limericks I first learned and delighted sharing with my adolescent peers out behind the barn. At that time poetic forms were an unknown quantity and a “pome” as I pronounced it was something you wrote with the last words of each two succeeding or alternating lines ending in the same sound. The quatrain, the most popular form of English versification, was the unnamed model used for those first poems. In fact, growing up in a somewhat Puritanical household, a limerick could not have been poetry because they were “dirty” and poetry was “clean”. This was the assumption of the small town boy who finally discovered the truth in a college course designed to improve his knowledge of literature. The
The occasion for my first limerick has long been forgotten, even the time is no longer known. Many have been lost for not being written down or the copy has been lost in the clutter. No great loss to be sure, but there are a few left to be shared and many include the reason for being written. Someone suggested they should be kept and as a result those which were scribbled on various scraps of paper including fly leafs from crossword puzzle books, napkins from bars and restaurants, paper plates from the Hollywood Bowl, a shopping bag from Ketcham, Idaho (one of the lost group), envelopes, etc. are kept in a storage box. About the only type that has never been used is toilet paper because it is so difficult to write on and is very likely to get wiped out. This has come from the necessity to get them written immediately or they’re forgotten when a more suitable notebook or pad is not available. Also, it’s difficult to complete them in my head in part because of the revisions that are necessary to achieve the desired effects. There are many which have to be put aside for a time while searching RAM (Computorese for Random Access Memory). In my case it is more accurately described as Reluctant Access Memory and carried to the logical(?) extreme of Raunchy Access Memory for the scatological variety.
The rhymes that roll off of my tongue,
Propelled by the air from my longue,
Created in RAM*
Contorted by HAM**
Quite often are stopped by a bongue.
*Reluctant Access Memory
**Hopelessly Addicted Mentality
An example of being put aside for perhaps thirty years or more showed up as I neared the bottom of the barrel. It is described as: Bad example that needs to be revised. Here it is with the improved scan:
Dennis a man from the bar,
Loves to smoke a big black cigar,
His critics all yell,
“That stogey does smell!”
And he just answers, Har, har!”
Line four is just fine,but one, two three and five definitely need revision. Now the revised limerick which scans properly. It is your decision if it was worth the wait.
Young Dennis a man from the bar,
Will light up a big black cigar,
His critics then yell,
“That stogey does smell!”
He answers to them, “Har-dee-har!”
The occasions for which they have been and continue to be written are as varied as the situations you encounter every day ranging from birth to death and the potpourri in between. This may be as simple as the spelling of a word such as the word occasion in the title which has caused a few problems.
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Book Details
About the Book
A compilation of limericks written over the past 60 years or so about incidents that have occurred in the author’s life experience. Most are for specific occasions with a few ‘naughty bits’ since there are so many of those by others.
About the Author
Tom Lawton was born in the state of