Tweetable Limericks

by Lenny Everson

Tweetable Limericks

  By Lenny Everson

  rev 1

  Copyright Lenny Everson 2011

  This free ebook may be copied, distributed, reposted, reprinted and shared, provided it appears in its entirety without alteration, and the reader is not charged to access it.

  Cover design by Lenny Everson

  ****

  Chapter 1: Introduction

  What are Tweetable Limericks?

  Tweetable limericks are limericks that are short enough (less then 140 characters) to be sent as a Tweet on the Twitter application.

  These Tweetable limericks were all written or adapted by myself. Some of them are even original thoughts! Many of them, however, are adapted from famous quotations that I have shamelessly and without acknowledgement stolen, then adapted into the limerick format. (I’m quite appalled at myself.)

  Lenny Everson

  lennypoet@hotmail.ca

  ****

  Note on Format

  If Twitter has a way to maintain line breaks, I haven’t found it. So if you want to send any of these as Tweets, you’ll have to replace the line breaks with slashes.

  For example, the following limerick:

  We’re gonna hide in a bog

  With only kibbles and grog

  Cause the more I see

  Of humanity

  The more I like my dog.

  would be sent as:

  We’re gonna hide in a bog/With only kibbles and grog/Cause the more I see/Of humanity/The more I like my dog.

  This document has two parts. The first part has the limericks laid out in proper limerick form. The second part has the same limericks, but with the line breaks replaced with slashes for tweeting.

  ****

  Sections

  This book is divided into the following sections:

  Politics

  Love

  Deep Thoughts

  More Deep Thoughts

  Not-So-Deep Thoughts

  More Not-So-Deep Thoughts

  Seasonal and Outdoorsy

  The Arts

  ****

  Chapter 2: Politics

  It's a cheap thing to dis politicians. So I did.

  Democracy’s noisy and blind

  The worst system out of man’s mind

  The most foolish insanity

  Of humanity

  Except for all of the others I find.

  Our leaders - a curse

  Sucking the public purse

  It won’t do what it should

  But democracy’s still good

  ‘Cause other systems somehow are worse

  Yesterday’s answers, it’s true

  Are all he offers you

  But he gets your vote

  That wily old goat

  Every election, on cue

  Our leader usually tries

  To hide his sense of surprise

  When we give a high grade

  To promises he made

  And believe even one of his lies

  A toddler with a hammer, it’s true

  Can do less damage to you

  Than elected men

  Meeting again

  Planning to do something new

  Strange bedfellows politics makes

  (I guess they do what it takes)

  For kitten and skunk

  Can share the same bunk

  Made up of voters’ mistakes

  Send me money, rich brothers

  And some votes, poor mothers

  You know my career’s

  Managing fears

  And saving each, of course from the others

  Politics: a set of acts

  With which our leader distracts

  He plays out each scene

  Trying not to look mean

  Ignoring, of course, all the facts

  The commons with rancor is rife

  Loud with partisan strife

  Oh, if I could

  Prorogue I would

  Someone’s political life.

  Politicians are bred

  To think one election ahead

  A statesman, less clever

  Is planning, however

  For the next generation instead

  The world by rulers is marred

  So many nations scarred

  Yes, any damn fool

  Can manage to rule

  It’s learning to govern that’s hard

  A good liberal you’ll make

  Of the high ground partake

  Your ethics can soar

  So long as your

  Own interests aren’t at stake

  Socialists, it’s funny

  Are by nature sunny

  Along the miles

  Giving out smiles

  With other people’s money

  “Give us our rights,” they say

  But if you did one day

  What a pain!

  They’d complain

  Now we’re taking away their wrongs

  ****

  Chapter 3: Love

  False promises often are told

  About fires just growing cold

  But this I say

  I found out one day

  The cruelest lies are in silence unfold

  One day I’m sure that I’ll

  Look back and say with a smile

  Love did not, I’ve found

  Make the world go round

  But, ah, it did make the trip worthwhile

  As the seed comes out of the bloom

  And we run to death from the womb

  Try to remember

  Our fire and ember

  For Earth, without love, is a tomb.

  We’re in love, it’s true

  But love’s attraction, not glue

  So keep in mind

  I think you’re divine

  But love needs its spaces too

  Humanity’s own badness

  Generates love and sadness

  So call out the band

  Give us a hand

  For love’s cosmological madness

  Now the party’s done

  The room’s left with – one

  Please don’t be

  Sorry for me

  Because now I can see the sun

  “I never missed the water,” you cry

  “Till the well ran dry”

  I never knew

  I’d miss you

  Until you said goodbye

  When your heart has healed at last

  Just shrug, “it’s been a blast”

  For a mill, you’ll find

  Cannot grind

  With water that is past

  Oh, the people you have worn

  Since the day you were born

  Going your way

  Is like licking, they say

  Honey off a thorn

  Feeling a little forlorn?

  Can’t live with yourself this morn?

  You got caught

  You should have thought

  Of all this before you were born

  About what you want to do

  Silence means consent, it’s true

  But, you see

  It could just be

  That no one’s listening to you

  ****

  Chapter 4: Deep Thoughts

  Sometimes just a bit too deep....

  I find those reprehensible

  Who are just too sensible

  About God above

  Or the limits of love

  And anything just immensible

  When the world gets all mailaisy

  I’m glad I don’t know I’m crazy

  ‘Cause sanity goes out

  At one’s first doubt

  And the brain, all mayonna
isy

  If your heart is sore

  And getting up’s a chore

  Tomorrow’s outside

  A brand-new ride

  And every new day is a door

  You know, I’m not all that bad

  Basically a carefree lad

  Really, I’m good

  But misunderstood

  Just… eccentric a tad

  Be careful of words that you choose

  A lie makes for speedy news

  Barely hurled

  It’s round the world

  While truth is still tying its shoes

  A discovery? We should soar

  But often it goes into war

  The devil’s got it

  Went out and bought it

  Before science decides what it’s for

  They rant, fume, fuss

  Refuse to even discuss

  But destiny, I say

  Isn’t laid out that way

  Nor is our duty set out for us

  Some people are never exact

  Live in a matter of opinion, not fact

  Approach them and nod

  Pretend you’re just awed

  That, sir, is what is called tact

  It ain’t no disgrace

  To fall on your face

  You might find

  In the next frame of mind

  That the ground is your natural place

  It chills to the bone:

  With faith flown,

  And fallen from grace

  We’re left to face

  Meaningless alone

  Every bar’s deep in chains

  The enemy, our very brains

  But the more we drink

  The less we sink

  Into ashes of the day’s remains

  I’d be consistent, you know

  If I didn’t want to grow

  And was as ignorant today

  In every way

  As I was a year ago

  Others saw apples fall, not fly

  To the earth, not sky

  They saw it fall

  But of all

  Only Newton asked why

  With hope of redemption slim

  Humanity approaches the brim

  I hope I can

  Laugh at man

  To keep from crying for him

  The world make my heart ache

  With more beauty than I can take

  Sometimes I wonder

  Was man a blunder

  Nature’s only mistake?

  A little learning they’ve got?

  That’s a problem – not!

  Nor dangerous be

  To you and me

  Unless they think it’s a lot

  After the pigs have flown

  One little truth be known

  It’s easier to be mad

  With every other lad

  Than to be sane alone

  I toss the newspaper down

  Throw it to the ground

  It gives me the blues

  For this dismal news

  A forest to pulp was ground

  Life is not as we planned it

  We’re unable to command it

  Please forgive it

  Because forward we live it

  But backwards we understand it

  There’s many a lie today

  Meant to lead us astray

  The big ones enthral

  But the biggest of all

  Is the one that goes, “They say”

  Maybe it’ll do no good

  But I’ll warn you as I should

  There’s no bigger lie

  You’re likely to buy

  Than a truth misunderstood

  Against mankind’s legions arrayed

  Mama nature isn’t afraid

  Foolish, we

  For she

  To be commanded must be obeyed

  No man an island?

  Consider me a highland

  Linked to others

  Sisters, brothers

  Who live just below myland

  Life, after all, is stone

  Destination – bone

  No braver man

  Could be, than

  In facing meaninglessness alone

  Good behavior, that’s huge

  Or so they tell each stooge

  Go along for the ride

  You’ll learn to hide

  In mediocrity’s last refuge

  Some guys get suicidal

  Just finding themselves idle

  It takes a strong horse

  To find his own course

  When free of the bit and the bridle

  Unstrap that bomb, and sit

  Your belief isn’t (you twit)

  Necessarily true

  Just because you

  Are willing to die for it.

  Memory’s a strange old hag’s

  Collection of perfumed bags

  Tossing away

  Good food each day

  And hoarding some coloured rags

  People, our government, forsooth

  Would rather conceal the truth

  Haunted they

  Every day

  By the spectre of the voting booth

  A minority needs courage, it’s true

  To tackle the things they do

  But on the way

  Let me say

  The majority needs tolerance, too

  When I surrender my soul

  And get dumped into a hole

  Please say

  What I did in my day

  Was a bridge, not a goal

  The world’s a comedy today

  To those who think (they say)

  But a tragedy real

  To those who feel

  For a world gone astray

  Gonna lie? Make it good

  Out of gold, not wood

  Make it seem

  More like a dream

  Than anyone thought you could

  Maybe you’re getting wise

  When you finally realize

  TV’s not food,

  More like half-chewed

  Bubble gum for the eyes

  He is truly wise

  Who can rest his eyes

  On the morning news

  Without getting the blues

  And reading between the lies

  Sometimes science gets wings

  When somebody suddenly flings

  Aside the obscure

  The expected, the sure

  To study some “obvious” thing

  You’re consistent? How strange

  To avoid the Idea Exchange

  The foolish, thee

  And the dead make three

  Whose opinions never change

  Read the manual, learn the rules

  We don’t want to look like fools

  Alas, now I believe

  That finally we’ve

  Become the tools of our tools

  ****

  Chapter 5: More Deep Thoughts

  A committee’s an acquired taste

  Nothing gets done in haste

  Minutes they keep

  By those not asleep

  It’s the hours they waste

  It’s a kind of a pity

  That in no park or city

  Did anyone elect

  To erect

  A monument to a committee

  Getting “long in the tooth”

  Drinking too much vermouth

  Sometimes you do

  What’s worst for you

  To bear the weight of the truth

  First thing a ruler must do:

  To his country be true

  Don’t take any

  Crap from the many

  And protect the rights of the few

  Journalism today

  Has somewhat gone astray

  It’s all wailing and thugs

  And blood on the rugs

  And heroes with feet made of clay

&nb
sp; The truth about computers lurks

  It wasn’t really made for jerks

  Facts overriding

  They’re providing

  Worldwide jobs for clerks

  Rejecting truths clearly shown

  And lessons carved into stone

  People are naïve

  And choose to believe

  That which is least known

  I guess you’ve had your say

  Rambling and ranting away

  But your point of view

  Many not be true

  Just because it’s useful today

  Gather rosebuds while ye may

  Time’s flying away

  You’ll find in sorrow

  That’s gone tomorrow

  The flower that blooms today

  People get sillier still

  They fall for every shill

  What bothers, old chap

  Isn’t the credibility gap

  But rather the gullibility fill

  Those who get what they pursue

  Don’t just say, they do.

  Dictionaries read

  That ‘succeed”

  Means “to follow through”

  From a freight car, it’s true

  A poor guy’ll take a thing or two

  But give him an MBA

  And maybe someday

  He’ll steal the railway too

  I keep an open mind

  But it’s difficult, I find

  People who see it’s open

  Are always hopin’

  To toss their garbage in

  Our world’s not so fine-ean!

  Its physics is Einsteinean

  Its logic, though?

  Wouldn’t you know

  Frankensteinean

  I’m glad our knowledge has grown

  And for the learning we own

  In the end

  Less time we spend

  Dreading the unknown

  When civilization’s spent

  And you wonder why it went

  Decline starts now

  If they won’t allow

  Intelligent discontent

  A world warrior I’ll be

  Or a world citizen – see

  The moment turns

  My heart burns

  For the choice is up to me

  Action’s not a mystery

  Nor why we get resistory

  In the long haul

  We are all

  Citizens of history

  I’m held in thrall

  By the Middle of Nowhere’s call

  I’d sooner wake there

  In clear air

  Than in any city at all

  Curing’s retail

  Preventing’s wholesale

  No debate:

  If we can’t get this straight

  Our health system’s gonna fail

  Education’s a race

  To teach the right place

  Of Man,

  Civilization, and

  The catastrophes we face

  Define “civilization?” Of course;

  I’ll tell you the source

  From the beginning

  It was the winning

  Of persuasion over force

  Civilization advances, I say

  (I’ll explain, if I may)

  In every war

  When you’re

  Killed in a brand-new way

  Mankind ascends

  In odd trends

  From war to beans

  We’ve perfected the means

  But still confused about ends

  It isn’t the bombs we’ve got

  Where you’ll find the rot

  Cynicism, confusion

  And disillusion

  Are a more troublesome lot

  Rules, the law, the court

  Don’t sell them short

  Civilized, we

  If violence be

  The means of last resort

  Hey, sisters, brothers

  And all you mothers

  Although me and you

  Are equal, it’s true

  Some are more equal than others

  If you’ve got it

  Given it or bought it

  By far

  Chances are

  A trucker brought it

  A service economy suffices?

  I’ve heard such advices

  With factories in weeds

  What Canada needs