From: utzoo!decvax!ittvax!swatt
Newsgroups: net.jokes
Title: Regarding clean limericks
Article-I.D.: ittvax.354
Posted: Tue Jun 22 10:14:46 1982
Received: Sun Jun 27 01:22:51 1982


I suppose we can argue about what makes  a  limerick  "clean"  or
"dirty",  but  for  amusement,  you  can  look  at ones by Edward
Gorey.  He tends toward the macabre.  Here are some from memory: 

	They hand come in the fugue to the stretto.
	When a young bearded man from the ghetto
	  Stepped forward and grabbed,
	  Her tresses and stabbed,
	Her to death with a rusty stiletto.

	A beetling young woman named Pridgets
	Had a violent abhorrence of midgets.
	  Off the end of a wharf,
	  She once pushed a dwarf,
	Whose truncation reduced her to fidgets.

	From the bathing machine came a din
	As of jollification within.
	  It was heard far and wide,
	  And the incoming tide,
	Had a definite flavor of gin.

	A dreary young bank clerk named Fennis
	Wished to foster an aura of menace.
	  To make people afraid,
	  He wore gloves of grey suede,
	And white footgear intended for tennis.

	(Gorey has some fixation on white tennis shoes I'm told).

It's hard to appreciate these without the illustrations.

One of the appeals of the limerick form to  me  is  the  way  the
normal  meter  of English can be altered by breaking words across
lines.  None of these does it, but some I have seen by Assimov do 
(I don't remember any, but  he  has  a  book  out  and  I  recall
thinking they were all quite good).

	- Alan S. Watt