Not enough syllables - must be at least eight.
Ahem. *folds arms, taps foot*
Limerick Structure
http://freespace.virgin.net/merrick.sheldon/limerickrules.htmLear's book cemented the structure if not the the content of popular limericks. The content-independent school of limerickery holds that any five-line poem with the requisite structure is a limerick, as would be true for a sonnet or villanelle fitting their respective formulae.
Limericks are officially described as a form of 'anapestic trimeter'; the 'anapest' is a 'foot' of poetic verse consisting of three syllables, the third longer (or accentuated to a greater degree) than the first two. Lines one, two and five of a limerick should ideally consist of three anapests each, concluding with an identical or similar phoneme to create the rhyme. Lines three and four are shorter, constructed of two anapests each and again rhyming with each other. Thus, the overall rhyme structure of a, a, b, b, a, with the beat pattern
1. 9 syllables pause 3 1. da-da-daah da-da-daah da-da-daah
2. 9 syllables pause 3 2. da-da-daah da-da-daah da-da-daah
3. 6/7 syllables no pause 3. (da) da-da-daah da-da-daah
4. 6/7 syllables no pause 4. (da) da-da-daah da-da-daah
5. 9 syllables pause 3 5. da-da-daah da-da-daah da-da-daah
being reduced to a
minimum of
1. 7 syllables pause 5 1. da-dah da-da-dah da-daah
2. 7 syllables pause 5 2. da-dah da-da-dah da-daah
3. 4 syllables pause 2 3. da-da da-daah
4. 4 syllables pause 2 4. da-da da-daah
5. 7 syllables pause 5 5. da-dah da-da-dah da-daa
my addition had the minimum of 7 syllables.
So there!