• Home
  • Prompt Series—FREE
  • For Writers
  • Daily Poem-Subscribe! ✨
  • Teaching Tools
  • BOOKS Etc.
  • Patron Love

Top 10 Limericks

By Will Willingham 3 Comments

How to Write a Limerick Infographic

Click the image to see our Limerick Infographic

I once put some chickens on buckets
To rhyme in a verse on Nantucket
The chickens were jokers
Who’d make fine stockbrokers
But they needed to be more like puppets.

The limerick is a fun little poetry form. It’s often used for bawdy rhymes, though its origins were more for the pre-school set.

When we ran a monthly poetry prompt series on the limerick, we were treated to an abundance of the five-line ditties, and we’re still laughing about some of them.

Here, in no particular order, are our favorite 10 limericks from the Tweetspeak community:

1.

There once was a mighty big snake
Stretched out on the concrete to bake.
A cake for a gator?
He shrieked, “See ya later!
That’s one meal I don’t want to make!”

—Sandra Heska King

2.

A deadline in April: taxation.
No time for fun or relaxation.
I write limericks, I slumber,
put off crunching numbers—
an expert at procrastination.

—Monica Sharman

3.

There was an iguana named Bert
So fleek in a green muscle shirt.
With a whip of his tail
This magnificent male
Excited a ‘guana named Gert.

—Sandra Heska King

4.

More frequent the higher they rise,
their scandals and rhetorical cries—
politicians’ statistics,
misinformed, solipsistic,
corrupt practices, lies and damn lies.

—by Richard Maxson

5. 

There once was a cousin from Lima
who drew up a getaway schema.
With her bag packed,
through the hedgerow she hacked
to sneak off and live with her Memaw.

—Laura Lynn Brown

6. 

The crane gave a hoot and just fled;
Bao Bao to China was sped.
While the red fox escaped,
our gorillas just gaped,
and Redd in his bed played dead.

—Maureen Doallas

7.

Sister Mary the New York nun
Came to visit one time just for fun
Mom discovered too late
She’d made a mistake
And sauced my great aunt with some rum.

—Sandra Heska King

8. 

Two sisters went by middle names,
both their first names being the same.
The one was Maria,
the other … Maria.
The dad claimed the mom was to blame.

—Monica Sharman

9.

My Great Grandma Pearl from Saluda
Rarely ever did what she shoulda
After husband number three
Died mysteriously
She bought a ’74 Hemi ‘Cuda

—Heather Eure

10.

There was an iguana named Izzy
Who peeked through the window to see me.
He was looking forlorn
So I offered popcorn
But that threw him into a tizzy.

—Sandra Heska King

Plus a bonus limerick, from Santa to Heather

Heather, you’ve been quite a pain
Writing letters again and again.
You think it is cool
To break every rule.
No. You can’t have that castle in Spain.

—Heather Eure

Browse more Limericks

Photo by David Goehring, Creative Commons license via Flickr.

  • Author
  • Recent Posts
Will Willingham
Follow Will
Will Willingham
Director of Many Things; Senior Editor, Designer and Illustrator at Tweetspeak Poetry
I used to be a claims adjuster, helping people and insurance companies make sense of loss. Now, I train other folks with ladders and tape measures to go and do likewise. Sometimes, when I’m not scaling small buildings or crunching numbers with my bare hands, I read Keats upside down. My first novel, Adjustments, is available now.
Will Willingham
Follow Will
Latest posts by Will Willingham (see all)
  • Adjustments: A Belated Bicentenary Party for John Keats - March 4, 2021
  • The Reindeer Chronicles Book Club: You’re Cutting a Tree in Almería and Getting a Storm in Dusseldorf - February 17, 2021
  • The Reindeer Chronicles Book Club: We Can Never Approach the Wisdom of These Animals - February 10, 2021

Related

❤️✨ Sharing is caring

Filed Under: Blog, Limerick, poetry

About Will Willingham

I used to be a claims adjuster, helping people and insurance companies make sense of loss. Now, I train other folks with ladders and tape measures to go and do likewise. Sometimes, when I’m not scaling small buildings or crunching numbers with my bare hands, I read Keats upside down. My first novel, Adjustments, is available now.

Comments

  1. Katie says

    February 24, 2018 at 12:44 pm

    Hi all:)
    These were fun, thanks for sharing!
    Here are a couple of silly ones I wrote:

    Aunt Kitty who lived in the city
    was thought to be quite witty
    she could make us all laugh
    till we cracked in half
    then gaze at us with such pity.

    Although he was somewhat odd
    Even so, he had a great bod.
    Yes, our great-uncle Toddy,
    we all could agree
    Among fam’ly, had no peer as a clod.

    Reply
    • Will Willingham says

      February 24, 2018 at 7:33 pm

      Ha. 🙂 Very fun, Katie. 🙂

      Reply
  2. Mindy says

    March 7, 2018 at 1:21 pm

    My favorite:

    There was a man from Pittsfield, Mass
    whose testicles were made out of brass
    When he banged them together
    they played “Stormy Weather”
    and lightning shot out of his ass.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Take How to Read a Poem

Get the Introduction, the Billy Collins poem, and Chapter 1

get the sample now

Welcome to Tweetspeak

New to Tweetspeak Poetry? Start here, in The Mischief Café. You're a regular? Check out our April Menu.

Keep the World Poetic

❤️

Welcome a little patron love, when you help keep the world thoughtful and poetic.

5 FREE POETRY PROMPTS

Get 5 FREE inbox poetry prompts from the popular book How to Write a Poem

Join the Poetry Club

Join the poetry club, when you become a subscriber to Every Day Poems ✨

The classic—Now a Graphic Novel!

"Stunning, heartbreaking, and relevant illustrations"

Callie Feyen, teacher

read a summary of The Yellow Wallpaper

meet The Yellow Wallpaper characters

Recent Comments

  • Megan Willome on The Great Gatsby Book Club: Mystery, Contradiction and Switch-Ups
  • Katie Brewster on National Poetry Month Book Giveaway—Tell Us Your Personal Poetry Story to Enter!
  • Jody Collins on National Poetry Month Book Giveaway—Tell Us Your Personal Poetry Story to Enter!
  • Crystal Rowe on National Poetry Month Book Giveaway—Tell Us Your Personal Poetry Story to Enter!

Featured In

We're happy to have been featured in...

The Huffington Post

The Paris Review

The New York Observer

Tumblr Book News

Stay in Touch With Us

Categories

Learn to Write Form Poems

How to Write an Acrostic

How to Write a Ballad

How to Write a Catalog Poem

How to Write a Ghazal

How to Write a Haiku

How to Write an Ode

How to Write a Pantoum

How to Write a Rondeau

How to Write a Sestina

How to Write a Sonnet

How to Write a Villanelle

Free Printable Poet Bios

Browse all poet bios now

Shakespeare Resources

Poetry Classroom: Sonnet 18

Common Core Picture Poems: Sonnet 73

Sonnet 104 Annotated

Sonnet 116 Annotated

Character Analysis: Romeo and Juliet

Character Analysis: Was Hamlet Sane or Insane?

Why Does Hamlet Wait to Kill the King?

10 Fun Shakespeare Resources

About Shakespeare: Poet and Playwright

Top 10 Shakespeare Sonnets

See all 154 Shakespeare sonnets in our Shakespeare Library!

Explore Work From Black Poets

About Us

  • • Generous-Annual Theme 2021
  • • Our Story
  • • Meet Our Team
  • • Literary Citizenship
  • • Poet Laura
  • • Poetry for Life: The 5 Vital Approaches
  • • T. S. Poetry Press – All Books
  • • Contact Us

Write With Us

  • • 5 FREE Poetry Prompts-Inbox Delivery
  • • 30 Days to Richer Writing Workshop
  • • How to Write Form Poems-Infographics
  • • Poetry Club Tea Date
  • • Poetry Prompts
  • • Submissions

Read With Us

  • • All Our Books
  • • Best Love Poetry
  • • Book Club
  • • Charlotte Perkins Gilman Poems Library
  • • Every Day Poems
  • • Literacy Extras
  • • Literary Analysis
  • • Poems to Listen By: Audio Series
  • • Poet-a-Day
  • • Poets and Poems
  • • VerseWrights Journal
  • • William Blake Poems Arts & Experience Library
  • • William Shakespeare Sonnet Library
  • • 50 States Projects

Celebrate With Us

  • • Poem on Your Pillow Day
  • • Poetic Earth Month
  • • Poet in a Cupcake Day
  • • Poetry at Work Day
  • • Random Acts of Poetry Day
  • • Take Your Poet to School Week
  • • Take Your Poet to Work Day

Gift Ideas

  • • Give the Gift of Every Day Poems
  • • Our Shop
  • • Everybody Loves a Book!

Connect

  • • Donate
  • • Blog Buttons
  • • By Heart
  • • Shop for Tweetspeak Fun Stuff

Copyright © 2021 Tweetspeak Poetry · Site by The Willingham Enterprise · FAQ & Disclosure