Competition 33. Report
A healthy entry, though, surprisingly, mostly from the UK, for this intriguing little form, a sort of condensed limerick, with topics ranging from Hamlet, and Titus Andronicus to Trump, Clinton and Star Wars, and it was a hard task to select the winners and pin down what exactly makes limicks work if and when they do.
A cook named McMurray
Got a raise in a hurry
From his Hindu employer
By favoring curry.
Nothing quite as neat, in these days of dietary globalisation, as Nash’s period culinary piece with its ingenious phrase-reversal emerged, but there were some that seemed to be getting there. Commiserations to Brian Allgar, Daniel Galef and D.A. Prince on other entries which narrowly missed out.
Below, in no particular order, are those which made it. Congratulations to the survivors of a more than usually difficult judging process.
In old Samarkand
Picnics had to be banned
When the portion of wich
Was exceeded by sand.
Emma Mascarenhas
Anteater
Alarm bells start jangling
when ants glimpse something dangling
and fear it’s a ravenous
metre long pangolin.
Geoff Lander
A dimwit from Lancs
Whom they called Spindleshanks,
Though as thin as a pin
Was as thick as two planks.
Joan Butler
My malodorous dog
Smells like a hog.
But he’s easily found
When lost in the fog.
Douglas Hall
Taxonomy
There’s really a swan-goose*
And likewise a mongoose,
Although note that the latter
Is clearly a non-goose.
*Anser cygnoid
L.A. Mereoie
My goldfish, who’s brownish,
Is playful and clownish.
He floats for a laugh
In the murk, upside-downish
Susanna Clayson
I love a good gimmick
So happily mimic
Our laureate Nash in
Composing a limick.
Daniel Galef
This poet manqué
Wants simply to say
A limick's no poem.
So, write one? No way!
Peggy Verrall
Macbeth
If 'twere done when 'tis done,
And this dagger were one,
And my wife didn’t nag,
Killing kings might be fun.
Using maths, he computes
All his kitchen pursuits,
And the chef thus invented
The square pie of roots.
Brian Allgar
Should we leave or remain
Will we lose? Will we gain?
Soon I’ll have to decide:
Toss a coin, or abstain?
Martin John
A foodie in Derby
thought burgers too carb-y
so shunned invitations
to the neighbourhood barbie.
D.A. Prince