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
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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
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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.
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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
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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
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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
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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