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