Heavy the dread darkness
Expectant the land
Descending and drenching
Enthrallingly grand.
Trees uprightly pointing
Like hairs on a head
Quivering, defiant
While we humans fled.
A furious sight now
Of breathtaking act
Clashing forces collide
Inhuman, in fact.
How savage the onslaught, we didn’t see
My thoughts for my girl and hers for me.
Such tawny plumage has Penelope
Pleasing, intriguing the watchful me
Staccato stalking on yellowed claws
With splendid luck and a safe outdoors
And pray Phantom Fox is late for tea!
In the pitch of the night came Burglar Bill
Slithering over our window sill
But he came a right cropper when he tasted my sword
That pricked him quite proper and made others applaud
Since when he’s been most alarmingly ill
Well, just fancy that
When our next-door cat
With a touch of the haughty
And most likely quite naughty
Drops by for the occasional chat.
Hush! I’m on at last to Adolph Putin
I’m quizzing him about all that shootin’
Believe his eyes and mouth are spraying blood
He froths and spits his bile and says he would
Kill us all and then return to lootin’.
Could I ask you to pause right there?
Asked the man of the grizzly bear
You’re such a huge creature with slavering jaws
Be careful you keep the applause for your claws
And don’t separate me from my hair!
The Bishop was ever looked after
Indulging himself in pure laughter
When a friendly fine lady leapt quick up the stairs
For the Bishop’s cloak needed some running repairs
Taking a risk with the life hereafter.
There once was a maestro called Liszt
Said he’d never been on the piste
When he sat down to compose
He’d get right up your nose
For he’d play and never desist.
[ Something not quite right with this limerick.
Is there something I’ve missed? ]
I treasure the Vicar of Bray, hooray
And feel I have something to say today
His funeral service for cousin Shirley
Was gentle and kind for Shirley died early
Let’s pray at the end of the day, I say.
[ My cousin Shirley had a wicked sense of
humour and I feel sure she would like to be
remembered in a limerick rather than in
any other kind of poem. ]
The wedding dress came from Chanel
The bride-to-be’s idea of Hell
She wouldn’t marry the loafer
But ran off with the Chauffeur
And took the posh car as well.
[ This limerick was inspired by an exhibition of wedding dresses in
Ripon Cathedral, August 2021. One of the dresses told the story of
the daughter of a wealthy family who had been promised to an MP
in an arranged marriage. Some days before her intended wedding
she eloped with the family chauffeur. It is my invention that they
fled in the family limo.
Does all this sound familiar to you? It was a major storyline in the
TV series Downton Abbey. Perhaps this event sent shock waves
through Yorkshire society in the 1930s.
Incidentally, Ripon Cathedral is glorious and this tiny City so inviting. ]
The young Vicar got shirty with Gertie
For her language was frequently flirty
He fell to his knees
As quick as you please
And prayed she’d be transferred by 10.30.
The Professor said something profound
Monstrous intake of breath all around
She’d been thinking so hard long into the night
How her students’ great gifts might quickly take flight
Then mass grief was the critical sound.
He was an offensive fool from near Bude
Who enjoyed being quite shockingly rude
Last night he came one hell of a cropper
Hurling light ale at a furious copper
Since when sharing a cell with a nude.
There once was a grand hero of ours
Whose history’s a garland of flowers
For Nelson delivered one hell of a hammer
That made the French tremble, shudder and stammer
Making Britain the greatest of powers.
There once was a girl from Madrid
From whom all secrets were hid
She thought New Malden was north of the Mersey
And Gibraltar somewhat closer to Jersey
Which stretched even the patience of Syd!
Well, it happened quite a lot
Not that our rulers cared a jot
That the common man fell lifeless in the futile, screaming battle
When millions jigged to the rhythm of a bloody Spandau prattle
And our countries blindly went to pot.
By the light of the pale silver moon
I saw it was just after noon
When up popped a general keen to go over the top
Being the only one willing from such a large crop
But I awoke from the dream too soon.
Pom pom di di pom, pom pom di di pom
We’re marching to the Somme, di di pom
There’s a million of us going
Our hearts are overflowing
Deflowered and devoured at the Somme.
They couldn’t miss the delicious miss
When she fizzingly spat with a hiss
“Gerroff my case an’ leave me alone
I’ve told you before you can’t have my phone
Shove off, an’ leave me in bliss”.
So hugely ambitious was Claude
He felt Maud he couldn’t afford
So he spoke to her father
Provoking one stinking palaver
As he confessed he wasn’t insured.
He felt that while he was able
He should continue to visit the stable
For there he would meet
And lovingly greet
A fabulous fancy called Mabel.
There once was a girl called Consuela
Who expected to marry a sailor
But when he examined the cut of her jib
He saw she’d invented a peach of a fib
So she flounced off and married a tailor.
The moon was dramatically rising
Which in itself is rather surprising
When the deep sea diver
Soaked Lady Godiva
And copped a wicked chastising.
It’s not that he’d done anything rude
For he liked to please a good nude
But as she’d had a fine drenching
She accused him of wenching
He sobbed as she was horribly lewd.
The girl with her sweet mandolin
Faintly heard from somewhere within
When the Count soft approached her
And deftly encroached her
She made one helluva din.