Limerick contest! Win a MACHINE OF DEATH limited edition hardcover

michiexile

Because I would not stop for death, he kindly stopped for me
I asked that pale old scally-wag â€œWhat is there then for me?â€
His bony eye stared down ice-cold
â€œYour death comes from a dark green mold
That grows and festers on the bread your mother gives to thee.â€

joelcb

The thoughts of death would alight
While reading Edgar Allan Poe at night
Thoughts of grisly decapitation
Or gruesome strangulation
But the end came with toast and marmite

catgrin

The Buddhist monk’s card made him grin.
It said one simple word, just AGAIN.
I did please him so
That he was in the know
That he ignored the oncoming train.

snakedart

A king of intellect great
Made a game of outwitting Fate.
But, alas, like a stone
He fell from his throne
As a chill voice whispered, “checkmate.”

Anonymous

There once was a man from Nantucket
Who was fated to death via bucket
He thought he was safe
His only fear he might chafe
In his career riding horses who would “buck it”

Anonymous

WolfDead15
Not for you the drowned while sailinâ€™
Nor the end result of ailinâ€™,
The way youâ€™ll die
Is from on high,
When youâ€™re shot by Sarah Palin

timetraveler

There once was a Man From Earth
who died after experiencing Birth
It took such a long time
he had ages to opine
the loss of Love, Memory and Worth

RadioFreeUSA

Learning your death is a gas
For soon you will know how you pass
“Eat a packet of seeds,
then your bottom will bleed”
And a pumpkin comes out of your…

pounana

â€œConsider the soulâ€™s immortalityâ€
For the church is a theme of centrality
Yet itâ€™s staggering wealth
(So at odds with the health
Of its subjects) implies gross venalityâ€¦

Elmo Gearloose

Yesterday was Thursday, Thursday,
Today i-is Friday, Friday.
We-we-we so excited.
We so excited.
We gonna have a ball today!

Rebecca Black sings in limerick form! Hahaha!

Shrike96

Death comes for me tomorrow, I thought wryly,
I won’t face the Reaper meek and shyly
Hey, I have nothing left to lose.
So I am breaking into Fox News,
To take a dump on the desk of Bill O’Reilly!

zapgunner

Robots are always best
Even at the M.O.D. Test
Inscribed on each butt
Screwed under a nut
Is the date and time of their rest.

gjtorikian

There once was a contest online
Whose prize I wished to be mine
As I typed out my entry
I knew that in a century
I’d be buried with that gift so divine

Anonymous

A charming old lady from France
Was eager to learn how to dance
But she fell off the pier
and now we cannot see’er
So we’re pretty sure she’s got no chance.

HotPepperMan

A machine tells after your born
How you’ll die but don’t be forlorn.
With a sense of forboding
My paper said “Ode-ing”
But I saved myself with a unicorn…

Robert

She left the Machine with a glower.
Her printout said only “Cold shower”.
So she took baths,
for a year and a half,
’til her boyfriend, frustrated, done shot ‘er.

Anonymous

Old Smokey, the Yellowstone Miser
Cooked all of his food in a geyser
He made apple sass
With some Hydrogen gas
And now he’s much stiffer – but wiser!

Anonymous

Mixing it up with a haiku:

Death by catapult
So that’s what the temptress meant
by “let’s have a fling”

-scg

sweet patina

Once departed, detractors will say,
I left quite a mess in the way,
But it’s known among friends
That life always ends
Like it started: in medias res.

Kingazaz

It said I would be torn asunder.
What part of my soul did it plunder?
Through my life I shall fend.
From many hurts I shall mend.
In the end we will all be plowed under.

lost robot

There once was a girl from Eugene
Her own death the machine had foreseen.
So when the moment arrived,
She said “Oh well” and sighed
and quietly OD’d on Morphine.

quoick

I consulted a machine in Nantucket
To find how I would kick the bucket
It’s Diebold OS
Meant it was anyone’s guess
As you could us any stick drive to fuck it.

Afflictiv

The thought was enough to consume him,
For when they arrive to exhume him,
they’ll find to their shock,
as they search for his cock,
that a badger, most rabid, had doomed him.

Probably a honey badger.

pounana

Fame found the young man quite unbidded,
and left him creatively fridgid,
so the boy from Seattle
gave up on his battle
(though some still INSIST Courtney did it…)

Anonymous

There once was a man.

Anonymous

There was an old lady who swallowed a fly.
I dunno why she swallowed that fly,
Perhaps she’ll die.

There was an old lady who swallowed a spider,
That wiggled and wiggled and tickled inside her.
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly.
But I dunno why she swallowed that fly -
Perhaps she’ll die.

There was an old lady who swallowed a bird;
How absurd, to swallow a bird!
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider
That wiggled and wiggled and tickled inside her.
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly.
But I dunno why she swallowed that fly -
Perhaps she’ll die

There was an old lady who swallowed a cat.
Imagine that, she swallowed a cat.
She swallowed the cat to catch the bird …
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider
That wiggled and wiggled and tickled inside her.
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly.
But I dunno why she swallowed that fly
Perhaps she’ll die

There was an old lady who swallowed a dog.
What a hog! To swallow a dog!
She swallowed the dog to catch the cat…
She swallowed the cat to catch the bird …
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider
That wiggled and wiggled and tickled inside her.
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly.
But I dunno why she swallowed that fly
Perhaps she’ll die.

There was an old lady who swallowed a goat.
Just opened her throat and swallowed a goat!
She swallowed the goat to catch the dog …
She swallowed the dog to catch the cat.
She swallowed the cat to catch the bird …
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider
That wiggled and wiggled and tickled inside her.
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly.
But I dunno why she swallowed that fly
Perhaps she’ll die.

There was an old lady who swallowed a cow.
I don’t know how she swallowed a cow!
She swallowed the cow to catch the goat…
She swallowed the goat to catch the dog…
She swallowed the dog to catch the cat…
She swallowed the cat to catch the bird …
She swallowed the bird to catch the spider
That wiggled and wiggled and tickled inside her.
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly.
But I dunno why she swallowed that fly
Perhaps she’ll die.

The card read, the paper coarse:
SWALLOWING A HORSE

RolandBarfs

Ok, beat this!

—

Old SchrÃ¶dinger once had a cat,
in a poisonous box it had sat.
It might have been cooked
but nobody looked
so now no one’s quite sure where it’s at.

lmaoaml

There once was a limerick writer
Whose days looked brighter and brighter
Until he got fired
Because he aspired
To end all his pieces with “orange”

Tdawwg

There was once a death machine,
vacuum tubes and cathode rays were its scene:
it became self-aware
and half on a dare
flashed “Obsolescence” on its flickering screen.

Anonymous

There was a Bavarian lancer
Who fell deep in love with a dancer
Theyâ€™d court and theyâ€™d woo
Till he got run through
And she died of ovarian cancer

Anonymous

There once was a man from St. Ives
Who got stung in the arm by a bee.
He thought it a wasp
But then discovered he erred
And knew he’d soon die of anaphylaxis.

Nemo1

I’d just taken off for Tortuga,
The caviar served was Beluga,
Imagine my dread
when the machine’s card read:
“Death by Ooga Booga!”

Wendell

Through the painted desert you’ll drive,
And keeping below 85,
You’ll still earn derision
Dying in a collision
That Wile E. Coyote’d survive

Teastiles

Six months I’ll be dead, it’s a pity,
Wearing diapers and tubes, life is shitty.
But thanks to new law
I’ll pour drugs down my maw
And die, at last, with dignity.

w1znerd

A classic:

An eccentric old gas man named Peter
While looking about for the meter
Touched a leak with his light
Then he rose out of sight
And as anyone who knows anything about poetry can tell you:
He also ruined the meter.

They are not Limericks, but this page of Little Wille poems will delight readers with a macabre sense of humor. For example:

Willie, I regret to state,
cut his sister into bait.
We miss her when it’s time to dine,
but Willie’s fish taste simply fine.

Or, my favorite:

Little Willie hung his sister
She was dead before we missed her.
Willie’s always up to tricks,
Ain’t he cute? He’s only six.

The originals were penned by one, Harry Graham. My father used to recite one written by his father:

Willie, in a dirty diaper
Carried home a deadly viper.
At the funeral, Uncle Ned said,
Too bad, the snake is dead.

ArchitectMurphy

The etymologist misconstrued,
Wore magnets but were otherwise nude,
Said on his last breath,
“Expect Ironic Death”
And by knives was ferrous-ishly pursued.

Anonymous

Death Machine grew so bored one day
That it started to hum and sway
Bumped the edge of a shelf
To print a fate for itself
And wondered what had vertebrae

bartleby

Queequeg and his pal Ish did stick
Ahabâ€™s whale with a harpoonerâ€™s trick
The Captain did wail
Of his joy in detail
Queequeg groaned, â€œWhat a great white dick.â€

Anonymous

The Machine told each of us our fate.
To some, this wasn’t so great.
Some questioned life’s meaning,
and with reason careening,
It sparked existential debate.

w1znerd

A Willie poem for chemists:

Little Willie’s dead and gone.
His face we’ll see no more.
For what he thought was H2O
was H2SO4.

lmaoaml

There once was a manic depressive
Who experienced a strong obsolescence
So he leapt thirty stories
Right onto 6 corgis
Blood splashing botched his dive impressive.

Ghen

Ghenwa I do admire
With a passion from the fire
Our time is short
So we shag for sport
In her arms I shall expire.

lentilstew

There once was a man from Van Nuys
Whose blood drew a tale of demise
His finger withdrew
And his courage did, too
Unread on the ground, his slip lies

Saprophyte

Death is quite painful and sudden
Eyes pop when he starts to bludgeon
All for spilled wine on his rug
Tossed in a hole that he dug
How sad, now my corpse is well trodden

Johnx

There is a ghoul in a mausoleum,
Who will tell you if you ever see him,
“I may be a necrophile,
but it gives me a smile
to feel cold fingers on my perineum.”

Anonymous

A power line ‘bater was I…
Ne’er fearing a fall or a fry.
But one day I slipped.
The lines touched my tip.
Twas a shocking manner to die.

shathaniel

The Machine told us each of our fate.
To many, this wasn’t so great.
Some questioned life’s meaning,
And with reason careening,
It sparked existential debate.

wazzareth

A Nantucket fellow named Bob
Had a painful and swollen old knob
Severe Priapism
Drained the blood from within him
And now by his grave, his wife sobs

irksome

This book, my demise it sets.
Therefore I can have no regrets.
In a tone oh so hushed
it insists I be crushed
by an over-weight monk with Tourettes.

Andy

Whenever I blow out the light,
The Boogie Man gives me a fright.
To avoid getting bit,
My candle stays lit,
‘Til I’m consumed in a fire one night.

Anonymous

In chapter 1, on the mantle a gun,
And the man who drew “BULLET” did shun
all violence, living clean
and died during a movie, Steve McQueen
Cause of death: a horrible pun.

Anonymous

A plugged left anterior descending
His pulse would quite soon be ending
Plucked his cell from his vest
To cry “Pain in my Chest”
His smart phone chose then to stop sending.

Goorpy

They said that standing was forbidden.
The danger, in darkness, was hidden.
But I just wasn’t countin’
On Disney’s Space Mountain
to be last ride I’ll have ridden

YarbroughFair

There once was a strange man named Binky
With a disturbing taste for men and inky
One day the headlines read
About a man they found dead
Who bit the tattoo off a large mans winky

Leopold Stotch

They say that nobody knows
How your life will come to a close
If your predicting then quit
Because who gives a shit
As Vonnegut said â€œso it goesâ€¦â€

Nemo1

A machine that could tell how you die
but not when and not where and not why
would bother the heck
out of poor old Glenn Beck
’cause he’d have one more reason to cry.

ChiGiant

A machine that predicts ones demise
it’s inventor was not very wise.
For the knowledge you gain
just does not pertain
if you seek it while in disguise.

Colin Matthew

There’s a heavy feeling down in my guts
That entering this contest is slightly nuts.
Because, can’t you see
I use only a PC.
My slip had read “paper cuts”.

teedammit

Don’t think of your death as a loss;
We float on Life’s river like dross
In a dingy of skin
That lets water in
And you sink as you’re rowing across.

Anonymous

Iâ€™m a German/Irishman by birth
You could say that I know what a beerâ€™s worth
So let it be said
When I end up dead
Itâ€™ll be from an OD of mirth

kofi_annanymous

There once was a man from Belize
Who feigned a most deadly disease.
He was quite surprised, after so many lies,
When it ended with only a sneeze.

Anonymous

On the eastside even the florist packs heat
i wear out the steeltoes on my feet
They day I was hired in EMS
They said “here’s your bullet-proof vest”;
God’s grocery’s selling rotten meat.

petertrepan

BoingBoing dot com asked how I
Would behave if I knew I would die
Well, we’ve all got to go
So I will, and I know,
So I’d do what I’m doing. Goodbye!

Nefarius Dakota

There once was a man from Ukraine
Who went out at night, in the rain.
He was eaten by zeds
But woke up in his bed
And had the funniest craving for brains.

druse

At the time when my death was pending
By a bird that was quickly descending
Oxygen depleted in its artery
Cause he suddenly choked on a potter bee
And it wasnÂ´t my life that was ending

Subdrill

Illuminated by the glow of its screen,
There was no doubt what the words could mean:
“Because you’re a klutz,
You’ll die from papercuts
Off a printout from a death-guessing machine.”

line_voltage

so you say we’re shit out of luck
that the book says we’re pretty much fucked
well i hope death will be
as important to me
as the book is to your miserable fluff

Anonymous

A slippery oyster I ate
Had pleaded with me from the plate,
“I do not deserve
This death as hors d’oeuvre.
This is not my idea of a date!”

DanR

It looks like the scales were tipped,
When in front of that bus I was tripped.
The wheels were heavy and brutal,
Turning my brains into creamy wet strudel,
And now I lie dead in this crypt.

groceryliszt

Parents said it would help my fame grow
Now suicide’s the only option I know
A ghastly last end…
I’m Rebecca Black’s friend!
Why did I agree to be in that video!

Red

As Death comes about to meet,
I see him standing by my feet.
But I rolled and laughed
As he thought I was daft;
He’s still pantless as he left in defeat.

Giblet

I thought that my mother was kidding
I refused to submit to her bidding
My eyes start to glisten
I know now I should listen
“Keep your hands in the cart and stay sitting”

DanR

I imagined my head was quite level,
So why did I deal with the devil?
When he came for my soul,
After I died on the bowl,
He looked a little like Aaron Neville.

Ito Kagehisa

Hugo Pinero built a machine
insurance companies said was obscene
I asked Hugo to read me
to find how God would speed me
but he said my end couldn’t be seen

mhsenkow

To conservatives Obama is the one.
End of days, he is Satan’s son.
He’s cool, black and couth.
So it must be the truth.
So his presidency must be undone.

But wait, there’s another who’s more fit.
Her words make the liberals spit.
Media laps at her discord.
And her terrible tea-party horde.
The antichrist, its a brown-bunned old ditz.

jacobwitt

There once was a fellow from Kent,
Who didn’t quite care how he went,
so he got quite a shock,
when pecked to death by a cock,
as he’d given up chicken for lent!

De-Money

One night, I awoke from a dream
Whose subject was rather obscene
I dreamed that I died
But now I’m alive
Or–at least–I once was, it seems.

nr

An anachronistic machine
Appeared in the Pleistocene.
It spat out a chit
That read “In Tar Pit”.
The brontosaur sank with a scream.

Anonymous

Saw a creepy old man dressed in black
When he walked, his knees clicky-clacked
When he crooked his bone finger
I didn’t linger
I turned and fled his attack.

AlDaFi

There once was a man with a blade
He sliced and he slashed at his maid
She dodged and she ducked,
But oh, she was f*cked,
No matter how much she prayed.

CraigL

Birth through the point we become self-aware,
Life feels so random, capricious, unfair,
Make uncertainty stop,
With a single red drop,
Wisdom embodied in Death’s final stare.

jacquesphoto

There was once a man who liked sinning,
Till finally Death came a-grinning,
He was wearing a bowler,
asked, ‘are you bi-polar?’
and Charlie said: ‘I am bi-winning!’

uncleben

Deathclock.com says that I’m done
May 25th, twenty five one
More days I can live
if I get active
and get off of this damn chair cushion.

YarbroughFair

A Machine of Death used to crush heads
Sits idle in a clearing of sheds
The locals pray
That maybe some day
A family shows up asking for beds

YarbroughFair

Death by a million paper cuts
Buckets of blood and steaming guts
Caused by loose pages
Of a book by Sages
Now on sale at Starbucks

gravytop

There once was a man named McMurkin
Addicted to jerkin his gherkin
Said his wife “you! McMurkin!
By jerkin your gherkin
You’re shirkin’ your firkin’
You bastard!

YarbroughFair

There once was a man named Walt
Who battled a craving for malt
He was quite thuggish
And moved somewhat sluggish
And died in a mound of salt

Noims

Your life is a short-lived hello
A chance to transform what we know
But you’ve got to be quick
You’ll grow old or get sick
Death will let someone else have a go

YarbroughFair

There once was a man with flavor
for his buxom young sweet neighbor
He climbed her wall
And proceed to fall
Upon her husbands rusty saber

Marktech

THE CLEAN ONE

To Death I would not acquiesce:
I issued a challenge at chess.
I knew I was doomed
When he sat down and boomed
“‘The Seventh Seal’? True, more or less.”

THE FEEELTHY ONE

A nympho saw sex as a schism
Of free will and determinism.
She enjoyed penetration
But went to damnation
By choking on excess of jism.

mhsenkow

On twitter limericks suck
Too short and small, you get stuck
So when I tweeted one day
I couldn’t think what to say
I choked, and died in th

lobito

For whatever reason it may be,
there is a sadness about me.
It may be due to knowing the the end of the world,
will come at the hands from which it unfurled.
Or the fact that I can’t see.

- Blind Boy Billy

iskelton

There was a carnivorous nation
That wished to consume all creation
But the vitals’ remains
Sent such fat to their veins
They soon sizzled themselves in cremation.

=========
Go vegan!
=========

beingbrad

in my soul it be burning forever
some snickered, some sneered, but not Trevor
nah, he knew (so did I)
that each one hadda die,
as they prayed, they were burned, ain’t we clever?

YarbroughFair

The Machine of Death was a locals kink
The beast a’ready and prepared to drink
He sharpened the blades
And lined up the spades
And called a plumber to fix his blood-clogged sink

tobiasaurusrex

Jackson Pollock was quite an alcoholic,
Though bravely managed to live booze free,
He then painted with drips,
But reverted to sips,
And soon drove his poor truck through a tree.

[The meter is correct with conversational pronunciation, where we pronounce "Pollock" not as "Paw-lock", but "Pawl'k", and likewise "alcoholic" is "alcohol'c". Similarly we have "brav'ly" and "manag'd".]

Noims

(Can’t resist the last line)

The reaper will come, you may sigh
You won’t get that one last goodbye
But don’t be annoyed
You can know schadenfreude
With strange aeons even death may die

mhsenkow

On twitter limericks suck
Too short and small, you get stuck
So when I tweeted one day
I couldn’t think what to say
I choked, and died in th

Johnny Trash

My doctor’s not one to be shying
Away from the truth, or denying.
I said, “Doc, how’s my cancer”
And this was his answer:
“It’s fine but the rest of you’s dying!”

YarbroughFair

There once was a vain woman named Cher
With locks so long it hung down to there
Tangled up in a passing bus
She screamed â€œOh! My tress might muss!â€
And chopped of her head instead of her hair

kiltreiser

One night as I’m out for a food run
I’ll come face to face with a live one
One shot to the head
As a dodo – I’m dead
Who knew zombies could use a machine gun?

DanR

Climbing into the chimney with care,
To delight my five children down there,
I dressed up all in red,
But landed hard on my head,
Death sure destroys Christmas cheer.

Afflictiv

One more, this time a two-parter.

Part 1

Determined to prove that thing wrong,
that his death would be painful, and long,
He stood right on the side,
and with fire in his eyes,
he let go with a smile and a song

Part 2

He awoke in a hospital bed,
It was just as that damned thing had said,
He would live out his days,
in incredible pain,
from a near-fatal blow to the head.

YarbroughFair

Once there lived a woman named Minx
Who fought a craving for paper and inks
She killed a librarian
An octogenarian
For refusing to lend her a book about drinks

DJBudSonic

OK here’s one more try…

My death card is really a doozy,
Just reading it makes me feel woozy.
Still, you won’t catch me moaning,
complaining or groaning…
When it comes to Death, who can be choosy?

OrionObrien

From youth, to ancient infirm,
We span but a limited term.
We all have a date,
So why should we hate
That Death has called to confirm?

Anonymous

no doubt about death, come what may
please love, mold a cup from my clay
if ever you thirst
just drink of me first
a kiss from my lips, should I stray

Clyde the Penguin

The issue of how I’ll demise
Is one that I often surmise.
When I take my last breath
I would like Mister Death
To pop up and shout out “SURPRISE!”

LeakyBucket

Death at the hands of a mob,
Incited by my bloody gob,
Was a glorious start,
but then fell apart,
I end with a piss, moan and sob.

Anonymous

A man learned his heartbeat would still tick
Till it stopped in the midst of a a limeri-

Anonymous

I once was a young living soul,
until that fateful day’s stroll,
my predicted demise,
I often despised,
until I fell down that manhole.

Anonymous

you might think this is sort of a joke
but I’ve always known I would choke
I wake in the night
in anxiety and fright
it’s like me epiglottis is broke

my mates say give up the Smoke
but I needs that one daily toke
I’ll be found in me bed
stone cold and already dead
even though I will much rather have woke

g

Anonymous

a grayed man sat on a bench downtown
eyes fixed while the mad world loomed around
the pigeons crept near
and ants climbed his ear
the tsunami of old age had crashed down

YarbroughFair

My partner Duane, an electrician, begged me write one for him. Should I make sure he has a will?

There once was an electrician named Duane
Who pranced around town with a copper cane
One day in the night
It caught on a light
And fried him good in the pouring rain

Ang

there was a death telling machine
Spelt on a card, death yet unseen
and upon it it read:
“A wandering bobsled”
Now, what in the world does that mean?

Anonymous

There once were two lovers in July.
Who were public with their privates, not shy.
They decided to get twice the lift
Have sex on the edge of a cliff.
So sad they had to fuck off and die.

-&rew

Anonymous

A banker from Independence, Missouri
Bought all the ammo he could carry.
He set off on the Trail,
But you know without fail,
That soon he will Have Died of Dysentery.

cap10wow

so, who won?

Ang

There was an existentialist
Who often asked why we exist
One day, came a Machine
Predicting the unseen
“Ah,” He said, “you’re a Calvinist.”‘

YarbroughFair

There once was a crazy woman named Shirley
Who always called a plumber bright and early
Soon he let out a resounding yipe
â€œA blood clot has fallen from the pipe!â€
And she made quick work of him in a hurry

Antinous / Moderator

Since I’m ineligible anyway, here’s a limerick meditation on death.

A poet romantic called Bryant,
As a teen was a keen mental giant.
He dashed off death’s synopsis,
Termed the verse Thanatopsis
Before Emerson waxed self-reliant.

Anonymous

Now I may not be Nostradamus,
but death is most always upon us.
Whether old or a teen
death will surely be seen.
For in death we are always anon’mous.

Ang

There was a death telling machine
Predicting deaths vague and obscene
It would print out a card,
Leave the user quite jarred
As they chewed over “Death By Spleen”

SomeGuy

There once was a chap named SomeGuy
who was pondering how he might die.
His mate asked, “Have you seen
a book called ‘The Machine?’”
He said, “No, but I’ll give it a try”.

recognizer

Beholding one’s true mortal fate,
is dispiriting, no matter the date,
once foretold, it’s traumatic,
all too melodramatic,
to think of oneself as “the late”.

qwanderer

Got my card, and it honestly said
“You’ll be bopped on the nose until dead.”
Playing games with my cheetah,
I usually beat her,
But not after that has been read.

Chentzilla

I see, someone beat me to the idea of killing the most Boing Boing writers in a single limerick (By the way, only 3? I think you can do better, people!).
Well, how about that:

There once lived a maker called Cory,
Who said: “Poesy, Alice, don’t worry”,
As he put his hand into
A possessed 3D-printer…
His unmaking was slow and gory.

Esmer

Magic broom
cackle and monkey fly
but none can save you
when a Kansas farm girl
drops a house on your head
for killer shoes red
it is your time to die.

mediatinker

She knew all her lives had been past -
Nirvana next – this was her last!
Today was the day;
Just one step away!
The 29 bus hit her fast.

YarbroughFair

A nice astronaut Robert L. Behnken
Who thought he had space sickness we reckoned
Sipping his orange tang
He saw an orangutang
And died thinking he was Albert the Second

Flint_Paper

This limerick was brought to you by Existentialist Philosophy: For when you want to be unemployable _and_ horribly, horribly aware of your own mortality.

Weâ€™re so confident we can go far:
Get a job! Own a house! Buy a car!
But according to Sartre
Weâ€™re just playing a part
By engaging in such mauvaise foi.

(Hell yes I rhymed with ‘Sartre’ with ‘part’. That’s a totally legitimate way of pronouncing it, dammit!)

SamSam

I’m more interested in the rhyme of “foi” with “car.” That’s quite a Boston accent!

Anonymous

To smash the simple atom
was all mankind’s intent
And any day, the atom may
return the compliment.

Anonymous

I will die from a blow to the head,
My face with a bruised-in boot tread,
My beating deserved,
Say rhyme-readers unnerved
By the last line.

ChicaMaria

There’re razors, gas, acid and drugs,
And virus or guns could stain the rugs,
Consider the mess,
When under final duress,
Dirty departures are for squashed bugs.Â

S1s3but0

A sloppy decorator from Maine,
would die from an overdose of paint.
The washing machine,
he had not foreseen,
His last time he didn’t leave a stain.

bic

Skip Saunders was a sleepwalking old man
Who dreamed he was a samauri in Japan
He killed his cat Larry
Then performed harikiri
All the while sitting on the can

MikeBB

There was a young Scotsman from Neth
who was deadly afraid of Death
so wearing only a kilt
and a one-legged stilt
he prayed he’d never be kill’t.

YarbroughFair

With a death card I did try a trick
Out of turn I made my last pick
Another player
Said â€œWe should slay her!â€
And made me choke on the whole deck

dexter121uk

i played with death by choosing to live
i uncocked the gun and chose to forgive
i wiped away a tear and sweat from my head
heading out of my front door with a sudden feeling of dread
it was a lorry that took me out that fine day swerving to miss a cat it hit me instead

Anonymous

Some think that life is overrated
They leave this great feast hardly sated
Might I recommend?
Be careful my friend:
Donâ€™t eat the sushi thatâ€™s outdated.

Anonymous

A young time explorer named Fist
Went through time with a flick of his wrist
Without any bother
He killed his grandfather
And found that he didn’t exi

cg

If Republicans win the day
And Medicare goes away
Theyâ€™ll get sick and decrepit
With no one to clean their shit
Weâ€™re dead because we couldnâ€™t pay

Cybe

I read the results with surprise,
The blood test of how everyone dies.
How ironic the causation,
Blood test needle contamination.
Macabre humor in a fiction book’s guise.

Anonymous

Far away from Australia I flew
When the paper marked “OUTBACK” I drew.
Now the irony’s clear
As I lie bleeding here-
I’ve been hit by a damned Subaru.

Anonymous

Huzzah! Someone has mastered the iambic!

Astragali

I think: To believe in determinism
Is just an extreme form of masochism.
Does the thought of free will
Give an unending chill?
(Please forgive me: I’m well-versed in cynicism.)

Anonymous

I’m a man who lives life with care
To do wrong to another I couldn’t bear
(I don’t even swat flies).
So imagine my surprise
When my slip read Electric Chair

LuckyJim

on a very fine day in July
someone wished to know how he would die
so he found a machine
put his finger in, clean
and pulled out a bloody big lie

Bartacus

My Death-Predict’s “Knife through the skull.”
As I de-knife my kitchen I mull:
If I dodge the planned hearse
Will my death just hurt worse?
Like that sad weird-faced cyclops in Krull?

LuckyJim

there was an old pig in a sty
that was incapable of telling a lie
just like the machine
which the whole world had seen
he could tell people how they would die

Francis Heaney

A man who’d been told that his doom
Would leave spatters all over his room,
Not admitting defeat,
Said, “I’ll live on the street!”
But before he could leave, he went boom.

qualmann

The Machine said to man in Nantucket,
“You’ll choke on the length when you suck it”.
He said with a grin
As he wiped off his chin,
“It’s fate, so I won’t try to buck it”.

Anonymous

There once was a book about dying
I read it and ended up crying
Because I found out
Iâ€™d be killed by a girl scout
For taking her cookies and lying

Kethos

There once was a man from this nation
who though he felt much trepidation,
to a Machine he went,
asked ‘How will it end?’
and found out — Liquidification.

jean m. peck

The machine said webcomics misread
Would cause him too soon to be dead
He watched XKCD
For death’s furtive decree
But twas uttered by T. Rex instead

hinges

This is a collection of fictions
containing a set of depictions
of a device that can guess
the exact cause of your death
and the results of these unerring predictions.

sgv

She came to take names
Like the scariest of dames
But i did like a zombie
Said darling get on me
Gimme some brains!

LuckyJim

there once was a woman on meth
who used the machine for her death
she climbed up inside
locked the door, then she cried
when it told her she’d run out of breath

DSouthwick

We all must leave this world
Some jump, while others are hurled
When nerds take this trip
At least we can quip
“Mirab, with sails unfurled”

archives por vida

After the scheming, plotting, and hustling,
He really hadn’t been all that cunning.
Oh, those last words were throaty
From that wily Coyote,
“I really should have seen that ‘Rock’ coming.”

zume

Machine of Death Amazon campaign infuriates Glenn Beck:
“There’s nothing in the world that would make me cut my neck!”
“How would you live if you knew you were going to die?
“I would dance sing and cry,
“But avoid frisbees, knife-throwers, and the world shuriken championships in Uttrecht.

LuckyJim

there once was a bloke with a sty
who couldn’t see through his right eye
twice fell down a ravine
so he used the machine
saying I just want to know how I die

mikelipino

While I certainly have no affection
for this new tool of Death’s detection,
it’s galling that I
will certainly die
from a MACHINE OF DEATH NEEDLE INFECTION.

sgv

She came to take names
Like the scariest of dames
But i did like a zombie
Said “darling get on me
Gimme some brains!”

LuckyJim

the next person in line was a sneezer
he coughed up his fee, pulled the lever
a cold he had caught
of death he had thought
when the card simply stated high fever

Alexander Danner

A young woman who loved the ballet
quit the Machine with a cheery brisÃ©.
“PIROUETTE,” was the prose
that had lightened her toes;
She had feared it would be the pliÃ©.

LabRat001

His Captain appeared at my door
To tell me the end that he saw
He’d trod on a mine
Which shattered his spine
And spread him all over the floor

The man from Nantucket decried;
“Fuck me there’s an hole in me side”
“With me guts peekin’ through
All red, brown, black and blue”
and then he keeled over an died!

With the reaper I argued my fate
What became of my destiny great?
He took me aside
and he told me “Fate lied”
“By the way, with the bishop, CHECK-MATE!”

Anonymous

Perhaps with a bang or a whimper.
Maybe the sword or misadventure.
Car accident, cancer or general mishap,
But hopefully for me during slumber.

teedammit

A man told of how he would die,
At once shook off all en-you-eye:
“I can no longer wait
For a purpose from Fate,
Since I see now it’s all d.i.y.”

ralphleon

Does anyone know what font is used for those index cards? Reminds me of field notes…

Anonymous

I once met a man in Marseilles,
Who told me not everyone dies.
He’d built a machine
Out of bubble gum and strings
Which collapsed on the poor guy.

TacoDave

I followed the rules; I was law abiding
But died on the street, through a crosswalk a’striding
Now I know what it’s like
Being crushed by a bike
And a hipster who’s texting while riding.

Jenonymous

We die from the moment of birth,
No count of our days on the earth.
And yet we all strive
To all stay alive
No matter what it’s all worth.

Anonymous

Ulysses had promised in plenum
To wrestle the monocled demon
“I know I shall die,
But I will not cry,
So long as you save all my seamen!”

jcartan

Inevitability sucketh
In the end we are all out of lucketh
Things are going just fine
Till we cross o’er the line
And that’s when we kicketh the bucketh

O2BIrish

In discussions, some folks volunteer
That their wishes could not be more clear.
They all want you to know
The way theyâ€™d like to go
Is get hit by a truck full of beer.

DanR

My friend who was not known for his smarts,
Decided to set fire to his farts.
Leaning back with obvious glee,
He did let his methane go free,
Barbecuing most of his tender man parts.

DanR

While walking with unbridled zeal,
I slipped on a banana peel.
â€œOh my God how clichÃ©d!â€
I shouted, then made
My trip into a world thatâ€™s surreal.

Anonymous

You might scare some rubes with your schtick
And your transparent “Death Machine” trick
But these predictions are lies
There’s no way Jake Boone dies
Merely penning some lame lim

putty

There once was a man from Bel Air
Who was doing his girl on the stair.
When the banister broke
He doubled his stroke
And finished her off in mid-air.

(a classic)

DanR

While listening to Florence and The Machine;
Of Death did I sit and I dream.
I considered dark portals,
That will be entered by mortals,
When the Reaper at last we have seen.

Anonymous

Coils and souls might be buyoant
Thus life more flamboyant
The mortal end hidden
I’d rather go unbidden
Than to be such a clairvoyant

Pip Hunn

The circumstances of my departure
Entailed elaborate manufacture:
It took Goldberg a day
To slice, rend and flay
And send me to the hereafter.

DanR

Because I could not stop for Death,
He instead chose to steal my last breath.
With cold fingers he reached and took hold,
And before my eyes my life did unfold,
Or maybe Iâ€™m just tripping on meth.

hammelworks

there once was a mother from Dover,
her kid, squished flat, got run over,
the blood was so red,
the kid very dead,
it was worse than the cat and the mower.

Vandertramps

A fantastic young player of cricket
Was shocked to receive, “DEATH BY WICKET”;
To settle his brain,
Tried to travel by train
But got trampled while buying his ticket.

CrossedPromise

There was a dude who liked to peruse
The internet for all of his shoes
He mosied unseen
To the death machine
Soles said the text, but whose?

razen cain

The Grim Reaper was known to complain
When souls were left out in the rain
“This problem is a bitch”
He said, twirling his scythe
“I guess I’ve got Richard Harris to blame.”

jakobcreutzfeldt

“How will he go,” the chorus it sang,
“Out with a whimper or out with a bang?
Filled with regret,
And drenched in cold sweat,
Like most, he’ll end with a pang.”

O2BIrish

What the Grim Reaper does is macabre,
Taking people and making folks sob.
Days of watching them croak
With his scythe and his cloak
May be gory, but, hey, itâ€™s his job!

websorcerer

There once was a man who was dead.
In Hades he then made his bed.
“I was mean and unkind;
No remorse did I find;
As expected, I was shot in the head!”

CrossedPromise

There was a young man named T Rex
He was made by a Ryan in specs
They thought up an idea
and got a book deal
And now we’re all writing Limericks!

jackruby1123

Dozens of pounds of tobacco
I’ve smoked it, some say I’m a wacko
But those all night cafes
laughing with friends for days
Regret is something I lack-o

Blue

There was a machine from Nantucket
Which told you how youâ€™d kick the bucket
People lined up in queues
But as soon as they knew
They took out their fists and they struck it.

Anonymous

When I went to the doctor he said
You know in 6 months you’ll be dead
But here’s the good news
If you don’t take a snooze
It will feel like a year instead

HotPepperMan

The Machine of Death is really quite mad
It’s lines of code had been writ bad.
With Flash instead of good C#
It’s now a player of the celestial harp
And been replaced by a new iPad.

DanR

While floating on Lake Lackawanna,
I was suddenly attacked by piranha!
I thrashed and I fought,
But my tender flesh they still sought,
And I knew then that I was a goner.

moioci

Perhaps you will feel your blood boil,
All the while you’re immersed in hot oil.
So says this device
You won’t have to ask twice
How you’ll shuffle off this mortal coil.

ciacontra

There once was a Boinger from Loch Ness,
O’er contests did he obsess.
But he read not the rules,
And Fate laughs at fools,
So his doom came via Next-Day UPS.

Chris

A woman who learned that she’d die
When an aeroplane fell from the sky
Was home on the night
She’d cancelled her flight
And a different one crashed too nearby.

Tdawwg

There once was a Machine of Death,
that predicted your last day of breath:
its unerring scope
left no room for hope
not even for those cracked-out on meth.

joeposts

Clean air gets traded for money
CO2 makes it much more sunny
We’ll starve and pretend
That it’s not the end
Some limericks aren’t funny

Anonymous

There once was a man from Nantucket
Who didn’t know how he would snuff it
He tried the Machine
It fell on him, he screamed
The paper read “Learning how you’ll kick the bucket”

Anonymous

A juggler juggling axes,
Silently poetically waxes,
“Should I fail, close the curtain;
only two things are certain,
and the one you’ll get will not be taxes.”

alTruism

I sometimes think of my friend
who would say that death weren’t the end,
but after that meal
where he ate tainted veal,
I aint never seen him again.

cyphill

Death seemed so distant at first
Though itâ€™s presence Iâ€™ve felt straight from birth
But I should have took heed
For death comes with speed
And Iâ€™d not have been hit by that hearse

SamSam

A striver for deaths underrated
Hoped he’d be defenestrated
But from the machine
“It’s a little obscene:
it’s blood loss from when you’re castrated”

Carla

Everyone’s got a story worth reading
Though their fates may be somewhat misleading
You can try to forestall,
But God save us all
If anyone’s death card reads TWEETING

Tdawwg

Of Death there was once a Machine,
that calculated your doom foreseen:
its margin of error
made for much terror
and for many a rupture of spleen.

klaatuu

An elephant know when it dies
It must travel before the last sighs
To a graveyard concealed
And never revealed,
Except by the mountain of flies.

klaatuu

Sorry, here’s the slightly corrected version:

An elephant knows when it dies
It must travel before the last sighs
To a graveyard concealed
And never revealed
Except to the mountain of flies.

Anonymous

To the Machine went the wisest of men,
against the advice of his friend.
“What reason to try
when you know that you’ll die?”
“Ah, but it only tells how, never when.”

andyhavens

No matter the place of your birth,
You’ll always return to the earth.
A prescient machine
May, to many, seem mean
But here it’s the subject of mirth.

An M.O.D. soothsaying card
Predicted, “An extra three yards.”
It was subtle and dense,
But when climbing a fence
He encountered the truth rather hard.

“A toaster” is what the card read.
“I’ll avoid toast!” the hopeful lad said.
He avoided that terror
But a prop master’s error
Dropped a B.S.G ‘bot on his head.

Anonymous

at night before bed
i am filled with black dread
cause what if tomorrow
(to their great sorrow)
is when my friends find me dead?

emg72

With Beck so sensationalistic
And news growing surrealistic
The Machine tried to sleuth
What would wipe out the Truth
And the card said: â€œLIES, JOURNALISTICâ€

Anonymous

“Do you have haemophilia?” the doc tries,
“You know I do not,” the next man lies,
With the sample assessed,
The card says “BLOOD TEST,”
And he promptly keels over and dies.

Anonymous

Some day we will all wind up dead
Be it by plague or a hole in the head
Or hung by a rope
Or a slip on some soap
Or snugly asleep in our bed.

recognizer

this one is so elegant it should be illustrated by Gorey.

justawriter

The once was a lady from from Vegas
Whose trial was strictly outrageous
It turned out that when
She fancied some men
Her taste was anthropophagous

cap10wow

i once met a man from the moon,
who cooked up things in a black spoon.
he said “i’m so clever
i could shoot up forever”
which ultimately led to his doom.

ahh drugs and doom.

Gutierrez

A boinger once stuck in a bind
could bring not a limerick to mind
he keeled over dead
from a clot in his head
and left someone else the grand prize.

catgrin

That machine said that I would die FIT!
(I thought it a mechanical wit.)
Then a seizure I had,
And it turned out quite bad -
For my shocked heart decided to quit.

SamSam

I got my rhythm a little off:

A striver for deaths underrated,
He hoped he’d be defenestrated
But from the machine
“It’s a little obscene:
it’s blood loss from when you’re castrated”

5onthe5

you would win if I was judging.

skysky

A man with a deathwish named Louie
took the test without looking, and Flouie.
When his card was read
he was already dead,
but they gasped when they found it said â€œBlouie!â€

catgrin

Death’s a terribly sweet girl to see.
She releases. She sets people free.
Comic lore would have you trust her.
Place your future in just her.
Better face Death than face Destiny.

justawriter

Probability was once so much fun
Oh the statistics that I used to run
Data can be so clean
You forget what they mean
Until your love’s number is one

The link goes to the most extraordinarily expressive stick figures ever drawn.

gravytop

I no longer wished to exist,
Cut my hand off, just at the wrist,
With one hand, can’t begin
To cut off its twin
But my sister was glad to assist.

DJBudSonic

O Death! You haunt me like a shadow,
Your mysteries I fail to unravel.
Foreknowledge of Doom
Lets me walk without Gloom,
Either way, I’ll end up ‘neath the gravel.

Noims

(Machine of Death ad, maybe, with thanks to Shatner)

Live life like you’re going to die
Coz you will, no matter what you try
But to compound the mystery
On your little slip you’ll see
How, but not where when or why

Anonymous

I’ve locked myself up in my room
Consumed with my impending doom
It would be sublime
To go back in time
And never come out of the womb!

PaulR

In before it’s corrected:

What’s a determininstic universe, eh?

Not quite deterministic, not quite determined by instinct…

catgrin

“BOINGER” said the card on the ground.
I saw no danger in what I had found.
Then a penguin called Opus
Turned me into a corpus
By creating a horrible sound!

Anonymous

Strolling in London one night,
I came to a red crossing light.
On my phone I was talking,
So I began walking…
But alas, in England, look right.

Wendell

Though the book raised the talk show host’s ire,
The Machine he still chose to enquire.
And so when Mr. Beck
Got his card from the deck,
All it said simply was “PANTS ON FIRE”

ChiGiant

Imagine a mom’s devastation
’nuff to send her into palpitation.
Yes the worst she could dread
to find her son dead
of autoerotic asphyxiation.

Anonymous

You always see limericks that rhyme.
The words sounds alike all the time.
I wrote one that didn’t.
Took just a minute.
At the end it just dies out.

Purebolt

On surviving the Zombie Apocalypse
Thereâ€™s a source that provides quite a lot of tips
To save human beings
From brain eating fiends
Try googling â€œundead love bacon bitsâ€

Anonymous

The machine said I’d die from the flu
So I hired me a doctor or two
Come chrismas I shimmy
Like santa, down a chimney
And died, like it said I would do….

Nefarius Dakota

There once was a man from Dubai
Who went fishing with three other guys
They were murdered by clowns
Who wore wedding gowns
I bet that’s not how you thought they would die

Wendell

So fearful of the Elevator
You’d always choose the Escalator
But a slip at the top
Fell down-steps with no stop
Reaching bottom a half an hour later

Anonymous

Lousy limericks tear me apart.
Bad scansion is breaking my heart.
This ineptitude
Is killing me, dude,
I deduce that I’ll die for my art.

Fourmyle

At Apple, Steve Jobs was the core
Tried “Machine of Death” in his App Store
Went on medical leave
Told shareholders to grieve
‘Cause his iPad screen read, “Open Sores.”

(With all due respect to Mr. Jobs and best wishes for a speedy recovery – I just couldn’t resist the pun. :)

Andy L Fisher

a man once decided to stick
an old death machine with his dick
it foretold “MANGO FLOOD”
as it drew out his blood
while the man yelped, “all that from one prick?”

Bus

There once was a man from Champaign.
Public job served him small fiscal gain.
Fox news had some crying.
About his lack of buying.
Poor rhetoric burst his cerebral vein.

Prufrock451

There once was a woman of rarity
Who believed in the nerds’ Singularity.
She said “Come 2030,
If my server stays sturdy,
I’ll be present for all of posterity!”

Anonymous

It’s a prick on the finger, then stick it
to the M.O.D., then take your ticket.
Whether terse or verbose,
the machine always knows
the manner in which you will kick it.

HotPepperMan

Death rode into town for a drinky
And met with a girl called Lewinski.
His normal black dress
Got into a mess
And he was kicked to death by Binky.
(NO, I DID NOT HAVE SEX WITH THAT WOMAN)

DanR

I recently reached a state of nirvana,
While visiting a town in Botswana.
While we prayed and we grooved,
My head was rudely removed,
And now Iâ€™m buried amongst flora and fauna.

ChiGiant

Curse you, you damnable toy!
Vile gadget just made to annoy!
All this tofu I eat,
to stay trim and neat
and you tell me I’ll choke out on soy?

Anonymous

There once was a man from Toronto
Who wanted â€œMachine of Deathâ€ pronto
But, hurried for time
And needing a rhyme
He reached for the wrong -saurus (Bronto)

….ughhh…

DanR

A guy named Dan R kept writing,
A contest, â€œooh how exciting!â€
But sometimes itâ€™s too much,
And he gets out of touch,
With the audience heâ€™s intent on delighting.

(Meaning, should I stop now?)

jo

Prince Hamlet found this undecidable:
Could life be a thing that’s abidable?
Which one would be tougher?
Slings and arrows to suffer,
Or consider himself suicidable.

Dewey Decibel

The pursuit of vocational path,
has left me with nothing but wrath.
So before I have wruck it
I’m inclined to say fuck it,
just find me a toaster and bath.

t3knomanser

That ol’ man from Nantucket,
Wondered how he’d kick the bucket,
The Machine spit out a card,
On paper that stretched a yard,
“Global brain ischemia” w’d snuff it.

//Doesn’t scan right on the last line, but there need to be more limericks about brain ischemia.

t3knomanser

I do fear that my death for the man from Nantucket may be too subtle in retrospectâ€¦

Anonymous

“Inevitable as the tide,”
Said the posthumous pre-suicide
Then a card came up blank
As his body grew rank
And then nobody else ever died.

Anonymous

Wow. This is a contender.

Anonymous

All that I wanted to know
Was how, at the end, I would go.
So I used the machine
and turned pale green
When it said “You died years ago.”

/Shyamalan’d

petertrepan

The machine once said things that I like
Such as “heart attack” or “crash on bike”
A diverse potpourri
Of the things it could be
But now everyone gets “comet strike”

Brandon N Schory

“This surely cannot be my lot!
This machine can simply go rot.
It said only ‘badger’!
Such spurious chatter
I imagined this thing would give not!”

razen cain

A blog post read by a angry arc welder
Led to the fiery death of Mark Frauenfelder
And pity Xeni Jardin
Who died of fright in her garden
Cause Cory’s head was rather messily severed.

jeremynyc

There once was a dead guy from LA
People sorta wondered how he’d got that way
A dog bit his ear
Tore the flesh to his rear
“Necrotizing fasciitis,” is what the autopsy’d say

PolishQ

There was an old person of Dover
who knew when his life would be over.
He’d wait at the bar
to be hit by a car
by the man from Nantucket that drove her.

Anonymous

A prophetic seer from Dubai,
Would divine signs and portents while high.
When a deterministic toke,
Revealed the Great Cosmic Joke,
He remarked, “Dude, the end’s fucking nigh!”

Anonymous

No gods are installed in my head,
At work or relaxing in bed:
While decomposition
Might change my position,
It won’t matter much when I’m dead.

talzaken

I said, “Show me my death in your eye.”
Haughtily, the witch let out a sigh.
When she pulled back her patch,
I felt my soul detach.
She cackled, “Now you’ll never know why!”

jimh

A good man met an end most ghastly
and was strangled at a quarter past three
It seems a tortured soul
Had endured one too many Rick Roll
and our friend looked just like Mister Astley.

Albedo12

A cautious young pilot from Maine
Recieved a card printed “PLANE”.
He abandoned his calling,
But a Cessna was falling,
And proved that machine right again!

catgrin

I went to this new place for tea.
Their tarot reader tried to scare me!
“Cards say money, or die!”
So I spat in her eye,
And said, “How ashamed you should be!”

Piet

The Marlboro man they say is dead
The desert dunes are now his bed
The truth be denied
He might not have died
Had he packed a Camel instead

fleshblanket

Every year without knowing I pass
The day fate decrees is my last,
So each year I make
An unbirthday cake
That I’m dying to eat, alas.

(With apologies to W.S. Merwin, the clever bastard.)

Piet

The Marlboro man they say is dead
The desert dunes are now his bed
The truth be denied
He might not have died
Had he packed a Camel instead

teedammit

The crux of each M.O.D. story
Could be said to be: “Memento Mori”.
For it’s true we are built
To be born and then kilt,
In between, though, we’re quite dilatory.

BottleBear

â€œThey all say I eat much too fast
That from choking Iâ€™ll breathe in my last!
Weâ€™ll see if that wills out
Have you tasted this trout?
Pssh, no bones â€“
HCCHK.
HCCCHHK!”

YarbroughFair

There once was a souless witch named Beth
who wrote poems of blood and Macbeth
The last line she wrote
Caught in her throat
And led away by the Angel of Death

kendralyris

I hope when I die it’s with valor
As zombies, all wretched in pallor
Come hungry for brains
I’ll fell their remains,
Until I’m subsumed and devoured.

Anonymous

The soldier’s jealous wife ran toward
Black ink on her hands revealed his reward
For his slip simply read
What Richelieu once said:
“The pen is mightier than the sword”

Albedo12

The card that I got was confusing
It bore just one word: “AMUSING”
If my death is a joke
To some scientist bloke
He’s in for a serious bruising.

catgrin

A toddler defending her cause
Exposed one of her tantrum’s flaws.
It was holding her breath
That caused a swift death.
(It seems that her card had read PAUSE.)

YarbroughFair

There once was a tall black witch named Beth
who wrote poems of blood and death
She wrote a line one day
How her life would out play
Snapping lead upon her last breath

petertrepan

To learn that starvation would kill
Dagny Taggart was one bitter pill
When the market turned bearish
She learned she would perish
For lack of a saleable skill

Wendell

The Machine’s message seemed quite enlightening
He assumed he would be killed by ligthning
But his death electric
Was much more eclectic
Christmas lights wires he was casually tightening

catgrin

An elderly man’s card read YOUNG.
A mechanical slip of the tongue?
Nope. They found him quite dead,
With the nymphette he’d wed.
In bed, his aorta had sprung!

Anonymous

There once was a man named Jose.
Found out when he’d die and what way.
He took a deep breath,
and leapt to his death.
Epitath: “I did it my way”.

Phil

One bright summer’s day in Shanghai,
I asked a machine how I’d die.
“I’m afraid this is it, sir:
Blame that man Beschizza
He poisoned your lunchtime pork pie!”

icerunner

There was a young man who was dead;
He died of a blow to the head.
The machine that predicted,
the blow that inflicted,
fell off a shelf over his bed.

Albedo12

Oh my God, look how much I am bleeding!
It’s down to this stupid death reading
“PAPER CUT” sounded dumb,
But the card sliced my thumb
And the poisonous frog I was breeding!

jacobrakovan

The lady’s cadaveric spasm,
mistaken for enthusiasm
held her lover so tightly,
he quite impolitely
interred her with priapasm

Rich T

Thinking “Death by the fever” depressing
A scientist started obsessing
To create a disease
Without cough or wheeze
That would kill him through gentle caressing.

Anonymous

There was a machine, a predictor,
That gave a most incomplete picture.
I stepped in the booth,
And this is the truth:
I cried when I got “Andy Richter.”

kylerconway

Straight into the cup he spoke.
Down to the depths to feel some hope.
The glass at the bottom;
eventually got him;
as he gurgled the blood in his throat.

Anonymous

There was an old man from Belgrave
Who found a dead whore in a cave
He said ‘How disgusting,
But it only needs dusting,
And think of the money I’ll save.’

DanR

While youâ€™re in the office still working,
In your backyard he just might be lurking,
Heâ€™ll pull out his knife,
Stab your daughter or wife,
Then over their corpse heâ€™ll start jerking.

disl0cate

Some scamper, some strive or cavort.
Some abstain from all of this sort.
We just try to scrape by
knowing we’ll all die.
Life’s still “nasty, brutish, and short.”

catgrin

GUM’s an awfully odd way to kill
But nicotine can, has and will -
So if offered a stick
First check it out quick
Or you may end up terribly ill!

hammerwing

The inimitable Angel Saint Nick,
“M.O.D: my finale please pick.”
It read ,”…sad to say”
“You’ll end up one day”
“With a Christmas tree shoved up your nose.”

Shame on you for thinking it had to end with a dirty word!

petertrepan

The pilot spat out a profanity
As he said “This machine speaks insanity.”
So he launched anyway
And suffice it to say
“This is terrible! Oh, the humanity!”

JackThompson

The card was a trifle absurd:
“you will die in a manner preferred
by the Coleridge crowd,
your last poem a shroud,
but your fate will still have the last

Brother Phil

The result for the chap from Nantucket
Said “You’re in for a spot of bad luck. It
Would seem from this reading
That your daughter lacks breeding:
She’ll finish you off with a bucket.”

Carbonfish

A machine that could foretell my death

Told me how I would take my last breath

When the switch I did flip

Came this curious quip

“You could not pronounce the shibboleth”

BottleBear

A pregnant young lass out at dinner
Felt a shudder, a gnashing, a simmer
She rushed to a nurse
Who told her the worst â€“
Not a babe, but a tumor withinâ€™her

Anonymous

Each night as I lay in my bed
The same thought seems to run through my head;
“At the end of the night
Would I die of the fright
If I woke and I found myself dead?

anon

if you are weary and striving to die
you’ll have to do better than try
take some pills, swig a bottle
tie a noose, go full throttle
and then jump head first from up high

petertrepan

Dear inventor, I’m seeking, you see,
Information that’s useful to me
The machine, though terrific,
Could be more specific
Than “You’ll die by ceasing to be.”

snufkin5

There was an old man from Nantucket
Who was finally heard to say, â€œFuck it!
My approaching decline
Is quite ruining my mind.
I should just find a shotgun and suck it.â€

BottleBear

When Johnnyâ€™s card simply read â€œSHARKâ€
â€œHow fortuitous!â€ was his remark.
Though avoiding the sea,
His death came to be
By an angry card dealer named Mark

catgrin

It does not help one to advise
Another of impending demise.
The cards could just be BLANKS
‘Cause you’ll never hear “Thanks!”
From someone who in any case dies.

Bob

I really don’t wish to seem pushy
But to wait makes my knees go all mushy
SchrÃ¶dinger says “wait!”
But I must know the fate
Of that superpositional pussy

HanFastolfe

Five men long afloat on debris
Spotted land with much laughter and glee
The island did think
These men, do they sink?
Aspidochelone submerged just to see.

Anonymous

“The Death Fetishist’s Lament”

Drowning, Asphyxia, Taze-Zaps
Cooked to death, Guillotine, Broadaxe.

–I could clearly die happy,
–for all of these arouse me

Sadly, my card says “mitral valve prolapse”

RolandBarfs

There once was a widow from Kuwait
who was said to have killed all her mates
but despite the bad press
she had very nice breasts
so she never had a shortage of dates

Girrlkitty

There once was a woman who loved cats.
Crazy, she wore them as hats.
Until the day
they decided to flay
The skin from her head which was fat.

Anonymous

A taxodermist went to Duffit,
to ask a seer just how he’d snuff it,
“You’ll be bit by a bear,
and then tossed through the air
Because you thought you would try to stuff it.”

DanR

Was it vanity or simple perversion,
That led to my gender conversion?
While under the knife,
Changing from husband to wife,
I suffered from extreme blood dispersion.

Anonymous

A hopeful career at the beginning,
But then came all of that sinning.
It should be no surprise
(It’s in front of our eyes)
That the word on his card was just “Winning.”

Hamm

He pondered the day of his death
Not knowing he was wasting his breath
That day had come
and soon he was numb
he died from mainlining meth

pounana

Heisman made a clear exhortation
to benefit civilisation
he said â€œI propose
weâ€™re just ones and zeroesâ€
and should think about annihilation

petertrepan

“What does it show me?” said I.
“The manner in which I will die?”
I peered in the barrel
Not knowing my peril
My card would say “Shot in the eye.”

Marktech

And this one is not a limerick, and it’s not by me (it’s by Beachcomber); but I won’t try to resist posting it:

Stunned by the masseur’s final whack
The patient lay without a sound.
Then, coming to, he hit him back:
Now masseur’s in the cold, cold ground.

catgrin

That Nantuckian fellow dropped off.
He’d developed quite a nasty cough.
Seems he was self-infected
From a part he’d erected.
It’s much healthier learning to boff.

aimeedon’t

I’m pretty sure I will croak
in a pillar of fire and smoke-
curiosity sated,
but if only I’d waited,
and not given that button a poke.

Anonymous

I think my death will be tragic
The ending of all of lifeâ€™s magic
I shanâ€™t worry now
Lest I â€œhave a cowâ€
And die a severe hemmorhagic

kofi_annanymous

It doesn’t take much to be dead,
Maybe just some expired fruit spread.
Perhaps a short fall, “Hello, wrecking ball,”
Or, at best, too much mind-blowing head.

hdon

my doctor discovered a malady
surgeons were needed quite badly
my complexion had been
much worse when a kid
my insurer departed me, sadly

irksome

The method of my own demise
if known, one might surmise,
would lead me away
from all meadows of play
“Cuz the badgers will just eat my eyes.”

Andrei M.

Death’s not so awful a thing
It’s subject to fate, chance, and king
It’s a lot like a snooze;
And someday it’ll lose
‘Cuz I know in heaven I’ll sing!

(apologies to John Donne)

CaptainObama

Imagine if you dare, knowing your death,
before you ever took that final breath.
How would you spend those precious days?
You could read a book or enjoy some plays,
Or would knowing drive you mad like Macbeth?

Anonymous

The best way to die by a dash,
Is to have it all end in a flash,
Stood under a weight,
You’ll soon be ‘the late…’,
…good friend who’s now sadly a mash.

cedar00

Upside-down pudding with custard,
Walking the fence at the dockyard,
Single-malt scotch,
Metric-measurement botch,
Or infected cut from M.O.D. card?

Prufrock451

When faced with their doom’s calculation
Many tried to prevent its causation.
Death said as he prevailed,
“Though these fighters all failed,
I enjoyed every bout’s prolongation.”

13strong

There is a young woman from Oz
Who is told how her death will be caused
She scratches her head
Til her head bleeds and bled
And the woman that is became was

Darcy Rawr

Once an old wag from Nantucket
kicked and knocked over a bucket.
His toe was quite coated
in toxins well noted
he’d live, till he tried clean to suck it.

guitarchitect

This strange, beautiful gift called life,
is less than predictably nice.
Yet forecast we must,
or in tarots we trust,
while rejecting the beauty of unpredictability.

cardboardtubesamurai

An old man who lived near Duluth
Discovered the Fountain of Youth
He spent centuries screaming
Through tears that were streaming
I wish I was dead, that’s the truth!

Anonymous

I know that someday I’ll die.
The question is how not why.
Will I get really sick?
And go really quick?
Or slowly decay by and by?

O2BIrish

There are those who will work out like crazy,
While thereâ€™s others youâ€™d say are quite lazy.
Yet the experts all state
That they share the same fate:
They will both wind up pushing up daisies.

Anonymous

From Dante we hear of infernos
From Shakespeare, existential “here goes”
We hem and we haw
and hope that we’re wrong
That in the end we don’t end up as sterno.

PosthumanPicaresque

Her life most boring and gray,
Across the ‘verse she’d made it halfway
At velocity absurd,
Her death long deferred,
As she outlived proton decay.

Slightly Askew

An opthalmological surgeon
Whose practice had begun to burgeon
To save on his fare
He flew value air
And died going down on a Virgin

wondermark

This is David Malki — thanks so much for all the great entries, everyone! I’m going to read through them now and pick the winner, so please consider the contest OFFICIALLY CLOSED.

ameta4

I once had a dream that my dream had dreamed me,
and if not for my dream I’d no longer be.
It set me afloat on a sea made of me,
and thus the predicament,
I’m sure you can see.

Shrike96

When that book proved he’d die of slow cancer,
He thought his sorrow could know no answer.
But knowing death can’t come any quicker,
He filled his nights with endless liquor,
Partying with Charlie Sheen and topless dancers!

Anonymous

I shouted at the grim reaper,
As my coffin fell deeper and deeper.
“Don’t ogle my bride!”
But he quickly replied,
“I did that so that I could BLEEP her!”

exwob

There once was a man from Downriver
who thougt he would die from his liver.
He kept on his drinking
(while all the while thinking)
“I’ll be damned if I die in a flivver!”

amycamus

Each night I would lie awake spooked
By forebodings that we all would die nuked,
But the Cold War abated
And so I became jaded,
Only to find now that weâ€™re totally Fuked.

Anonymous

There once was a girl from Eugene
Her own death the machine had foreseen.
So when the moment arrived,
She said “Oh well” and sighed
and quietly OD’d on Morphine.

iskelton

There was a carnivorous nation
That wished to consume all creation
But the vittles’ remains
Sent such fat to their veins
They soon sizzled themselves in cremation.

Anonymous

I bumped into Sir Stepen Hawking
One day when I was out walking
He said â€œyou and I
Cannot ever die
All we must do is keep talkingâ€

jrtinker

The Grim Reaper said, “You can choose
to die later or now. That’s my news.”
“My upload’s begun, Synchronicity won!”
Death says, “Die.” I say, ‘I refuse.”

Anonymous

A man wanted to see how he’d die.
didn’t care when people asked why
so he put in his finger
it simply read “linger”
He let out a sad lonely sigh.

Anonymous

A mathematician named Hall
Had a hexehedronical ball
The cube of its weight
Times his pecker plus eight
Was 4/5ths of 5/8ths of fXck-all.

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