Tweetable Limericks Read online

  A better artist you’ll be/Without reality/If you change into truth/In a telephone booth/And shut your eyes to see

  Never pentacostic/Not even acrostic/Life’s as much sense/As a butterfly fence/And that’s why I’m an agnostic

  I see you’ve been getting hell/“What a loser!’ they yell/Ignore the booing –/If it’s not worth doing/It’s worth not doing well

  Cats fight, I’ve found/The fury much renowned/Fur will fly/Makes me wonder why/There are so many kittens around

  In living day to day/Some wisdom comes my way/Like (I concede)/If at first you don’t succeed/Give up skydiving, I say

  ****

  Seasonal and Outdoorsy

  Starting with that late-winter restlessness, and moving on to mountain biking.

  Outside, winter proceeds/The birds are into the seeds/And I keep a beer/Cold, and near/We’re fulfilling their personal needs

  Water, from rooftops, flow!/Melt, you grungy old snow!/I prefer my bicycle/To the prettiest icicle:/It’s been a fine winter, but – go!

  Water, from rooftops, flow!/Melt, you grungy old snow!/I prefer my bicycle/To the prettiest icicle:/It’s been a fine winter, but – go!

  Twiddle-dee-dee/Water breaks free/I say, heart-felt/That an early melt/Is more than alright with me.

  Ivory hills of snow/Turn to water, I know/Well, I’ll remember the white/Some summer night/By the campfire’s glow

  You, February, I won’t miss/Not a pleasant month, this/Take your cold and snow/And as you go/I bend over, blow you a kiss.

  Old photos and beer, that beats a/View out the window that greets a/Guy getting cheer/From a two-four of beer/And another big slice of a pizza.

  Water’s movement seems/To hold the season’s streams/And in the rain/I learn again/The seaward flow of dreams

  Find the gear, find the pace/Avoid trees, find space/Forgetting trouble/Intense in my bubble/And a grin all over my face

  The troubles of the year/Just disappear/Mist of the morn/One guy reborn/In wheel, pedal, and gear

  Immoveable pillars beside/A dirt snake ten inches wide/The trail twists; I grin/Glad to be in/This forest rodeo ride

  The drive, the mud, the rain/The slip, the crash, the pain/I get up, then/Start again/Someone around here’s insane!

  ****

  The Arts

  Cruelly real, or abstract/Not always rife with tact/Poetry grows/Like a rose/Finding in imagery, fact

  Away the orchestra floats/The audience puts on their coats/Do they know, of the art/The largest part/Was found between the lines?

  Art’s an interest, you say/Something you’re doing today?/If in doubt /Stay out/Art’s not a thing, it’s a way!

  The quality of art, you state/Is a matter of debate/No! Any art/Is always part/Of a revolt against Man’s fate

  Art should cross fences/Laughing at pretences/Spicily seasoned/A carefully reasoned/Derangement of the senses

  Half of music’s no more than/Whispers from the Great God Pan/Notes are seeds/From his reeds/Loving chaos his only plan

  The soul perseveres/Among the café pioneers/The writing numbs/A poem becomes/Trouble, drowned in tears

  A poem’s a wizened elf/I drag down from some shelf/I shivers my spine/When I write a line/I don’t understand myself

  Poetry’s role, I feel/Is never to conceal/Nor to teach/But make each/Truth more truly real

  Call her reality’s sleuth/Poking at the aching tooth/Ember and fire/The poet’s a liar/Who always speaks the truth

  Into the canyon, a rose/A poet carefully throws/He publishes a book/Try not to look/The effect’s the same, he knows

  Hurt, the poet squeals/Writes, a poem, heals/But all that pain/Is just in vain/Unless the reader, too, feels

  I write free verse, and yet/Those words I soon forget/If it don’t rhyme/It’s like I’m/Playing tennis without a net

  A poet is seldom swayed/By the money he hasn’t made/The income is low/But, you know/Poets are born, not paid

  Remember, when you’re bored/Pen – mightier than sword/So write what’s true/Later, we’ll award you/A posthumous award

  An artistic dream you’ve nursed/For its glory you thirst/Please take heed –/Of the things you need/Confidence in nonsense comes first

  High-ho good fellow/I want a sound that’s mellow/Not one that’s/Like dying cats/So please put away your cello

  This instrument’s role/Is distressing one’s soul/A cello’s the wail/Of a guy thrown in jail/For life with no chance of parole

  Are you sandpapering a cat?/Well, it sounds like that/That cello’s in pain/But then again/I kinds like where it’s at!

  I’m kinda getting uster/Strangling my rooster/And getting mellow/Caressing my cello /And you can’t prove I ever abuseder

  Timpani’s the sound of God/Stomping earthly sod/Yelling, “What a bummer!/Every drummer/Is more than a little bit odd.”

  Sometimes I think in wonder/That timpani’s thunder/Cries “Vandals! Bent/With cruel intent/On pillage, rape, and plunder”

  Is timpani’s thunder/From Heaven rent asunder/And a horse, rough-shod/Carrying God/Rolling this whole world under?

  An oboe’s the sound of a duck/Whining about her luck/The kids are grown/Her friends are flown/And she’s about to be hit by a truck

  Sounding like the brake of a train/And a guy with little to gain/The cry of an oboe/Is an arthritic hobo/Finding shelter from the rain

  An oboe’s a little bit gay/(Not meant in a pejorative way)/But be it known/It wants to be blown/Once, at least, today

  **** END of BOOK****