Thursday, May 8, 2008

Decathlon Event #5


Event #5: Creative, Composition

Write an original limerick (or other short rhyming poem) on one of the following topics:
  • Your home state or province,
  • The Attalid Empore of Pergamon, or any other minor kingdom of antiquity,
  • The importance of good dental hygeine, or
  • Linnaean Taxonomy (as in kingdom/phylum/class/etc.)
Entries may be posted in the comments or emailed to M5Kdecathlon@gmail.com.

Residents of Nantucket please note that your "home state or province" is Massachusetts.

Also, before you even ask: a haiku is not a "short rhyming poem."


Judging: Entries will be judged according to adherence to meter and rhyme scheme, coherence, deftness of wordplay, sharpness of wit, and, when applicable, subtlety of innuendo. Provoking either audible laughter or a wistful emotional state in the judge is a good sign.

Actual limericks will be smiled upon -- see this Wiki article for the technical specs, if you don't know 'em (as well as for a limerick by St. Thomas Aquinas, which isn't funny at all) -- but any four lines of doggeral will qualify.

Deadline: Entries must be submitted by 10 p.m. (Pacific Daylight Time) on Sunday, May 11.

(Remember, entries for Event #2 are due at 10 p.m. Friday)

14 comments:

DrSchnell said...

Confounded four-syllable home states!

Anonymous said...

Warm-up exercise ---

I once switched toothpaste, from Ipana to Crest
Without any idea which one was the best
Neither one did the job
But you won't hear me sob
There's a female hygienist sprawled on my chest

DrSchnell said...

OK, after numerous failed attempts to do something limericky with "Oklahoma", I've opted for the much simpler, punchier "Khanate of the Golden Horde." In the category of minor empire, of course, not of home province. Not sure if it counts as "minor", but I hadn't heard of it until a few years ago thumbing through a historical atlas.....

Ghengis Khan gave Uzbeks and Turkmeni
To his son, who hadn't had any.
A Horde made of Gold!
But alas, things unfold,
Now that Horde, it ain't worth a penny.

Dan Nolan said...

It doesn’t take much of a sleuth,
To sort out the fate of my tooth:
A cheap, lousy stripper,
A refusal to tip her,
And a bouncer who wasn’t quite couth.

Anonymous said...

There once was an empire of Pergamon,
It's descendants now live in West Oregon,
One works as a dentist
One is a Linnaeist
Forgive me, I've just died of boredom

Anonymous said...

When searching for spots to go
for catching a cultured show
please have no doubt
unless you're a trout
it is best to avoid Ohio.

or

Catching a glimpse of wisteria
does always calms my hysteria
a bike in the wood
for the general good
reveals vines all over Elyria

Anonymous said...

People call Washington the state evergreen
Yet others question where those people have been
You see it is divided in two
(Like that Hispaniola view)
The East's the ungreenest that I've ever seen

Morgan said...

Animalia Eumetazoa Lophotrochozoa
Annelida Clitallata Hirudinea
In common speech
That is the leech
Umm... (pause to sufficiently take up the remaining few syllables) yeah!

Hey, it rhymes!

Karin said...

There once was a girl from NY.
Where everyone called her a dork.
She moved to Oregon.
They said, “Say ‘dawg’ again.”
And then she was cooler than Mork.

fingerstothebone said...

My cat, a specimen quite supple,
Lacks a certain lady-like scruple,
Nightly I brush her fangs,
While she chews on my bangs,
Then she likes to suck her own nipple!

Chance said...

The ancient kingdom of Phrygia
(You never once heard of it, didja?)
Flourished in what is now modern Turkey
With an early history that is murky
But didn't last long under that name:
The Cimmarians (of Conan fame)
And the Lydians and the Persians
Were among those who made incursions.
It fell to Greek swords and Greek bowmen,
And later was forced to become Roman.
And now you know just a little smidgen
Of the ancient kingdom that was Phrygian.
I hope you enjoyed this lesson
And the silly way in which I rhymed it,
Now I must, though, be confessin',
It took nine minutes to write (I timed it).

fingerstothebone said...

Already did one on dental hygiene, can I do another about my home state? Can I? Can I? Huh? Yes? Ok, here it goes:

There once was a woman from O-Ree-Gone,
Who was not winning at the Decathlon.
Then in a desperate bid,
Drove her to drink, it did,
And now she's a member of Al-Anon.

OK, I'm going over the mountains, through the woods, over the river, to spend Mother's Day with my mom. No more limericks.

Christine M. said...

Ok, this is not my favorite thing, poetry, but here goes:

An elegant lady of Kush,
Was walking out in the bush,
A monkey swung by,
Whacked her right in the eye,
And she landed smack dab on her tush.

McGuff said...

In the (somewhat) bawdy tradition:

Poor brushing can bring gingivitis
Or worse, severe periodontitis
The ladies insist
On good dental habits
Or you’ll risk a lack of their coitus