National Limerick Day: May 12
12 of the best limericks that aren’t dirty
May is an exciting month in the limerick community. May 12 was National Limerick Day, which is a pretty big deal in my house. And it’s where my strange and recent experience with limericks and synchronicity began. May is also Mental Health Awareness Month, something that resonates rather deeply in poetry circles. If you have any doubts, simply refer to my Limericks about Mental Health and my Limericks about Jungian Psychology.
A Synchronicity of Limericks and Mental Health
The other day I was parked in front of a little bakery, where they were enjoying a steady of flow of business from an eager clientele in want of pastry therapy. (Which also happens to be one of my favorite psychiatric modalities.) As I waited for my daughter to finish her climbing class, and devoted a piece of my mind to a casual game of Hanged Man with my son, I decided this would be a good time to compose a pithy limerick about bipolar disorder.
Just days earlier, a small non-profit organization in the mental health field had contacted me about using one of my limericks in a social media campaign. (The group is called We Hear You, based in the UK, and they specialize in mental health counseling for cancer patients and their family members.) Naturally, I was more than happy to grant them permission, knowing that the limerick was being put to good use with a charitable organization.
This organization and their request were in the back of my mind as I sat in the car and set out to scrawl a quick verse about manic depression, mood swings and psychotropic medication, or some combination of the three. And here’s what I came up with:
Polar Position
The condition we call bipolarity
Is these days no longer a rarity
The victims I mention
Are prone to depression
As well as to spells of hilarity
As sad as it is true, the world is clearly writhing in the throes of a mental health pandemic. The COVID crisis seems to have exacerbated an already dire situation. Whether it’s resulted from socio-economic injustices, a profit-driven pharmaceutical industry, or some other shortcoming related to the organization of modern society, I really can’t say.
But it was only a few hours later that I received this synchronicity-laden message through my website:
I want to make a limerick for my friend who’s always down and has problems with her mental health. She likes Limericks but I can’t think of one at all… Could you make a limerick about comfort? Thank you!
Presumably she was aware that I offer personalized custom limericks as one of my many creative services. So I was more than happy to oblige. In fact, I wrote a small series of limericks on the topic, and she could not have been more delighted. Or so I am led to believe.
Limericks for the low and lonely
Most of the time, we’d rather not go there. But sometimes we are drawn there against our will. And somehow, when we get there, there’s nothing quite like a limerick to provide a comforting balm.
Rhyme and Relief
Life is cocktail of blessings and curses
Where some people need to pack pills in their purses
But as wires get crossed
And you start to feel lost
There’s nothing that comforts like well-metered verses
Comfort in Kind
There’s days when it seems like the night never ends
The mood surges upwards and then it descends
With low serotonin
We feel so alone in
This world where we’re actually loved by our friends
Integration
Deep down inside there’s an eerie sensation
The ego and Self lack a proper relation
The psyche’s withdrawn
And awaits a new dawn
As the meaning of darkness finds new valuation
Further Reading
If you enjoyed these limericks about synchronicity and psychiatry, please consider purchasing one of my books or subscribing to the blog. You might also want to check out some of these popular articles:
