a change

[tectak]

There was once a young childish man
Who loved science and got dirty hands.
Until he met this lady,
Elegant, pretty, a little nerdy.
All he wishes for are her hands.




My second attempt at poem using limerick. Any advise really helps to improve my poetic techniques

Hello and welcome. You mean advice. Learn to spell furst an fourmoast.

Limericks, as read, are tempting because they blatantly entertain. Writing a limerick is not quite as easy as you might first think because the over-riding intent is to write a witty piece and not bother about anything else. In which case you will fail.

Let's look at your limerick without over-egging the technicalities.

L1 is fairly standard. There once was a X (adjective) X(noun) from/of/in X xx(noun),
Who X X X X X X X.
So you write:
There once was a young(adjective), childish(adjective) man(noun).
You are compromised already.Can you see the difference? You DO NOT have to rigidly adhere to the limerick rhythm BUT if you do not you MUST be able to confidently cover your variation. That word "childish" is entirely superfluous because it is not essential to the "joke". I now make the point I mentioned before.You are now compromised because you are foul-hooked on the idea of a limerick but have lost all the impetus to make the witty pass.Your next line confirms this.
Who loved science and got dirty hands. Huh?
or:
Who wanted a red and white van
Who though that he lived in a can
Who jumped of the Grand Coolee Damn.
See the point? There is no point.
But:
There once was a young man from Spain
who never went out in the rain.
He was drier by far
than a Clairol foot spar
used once, but never again.

...and that is all there is to it but DO notice the significance of NOT rhyming a word with the same word ( in your case hand and hand), taking note of meter ( in your case "el/ e/ gant/ pret /ty /a/lit/tle /ner/ dy" compared to " than/ a/ Clair/ ol/foot /spar" You can count, yes? and CONNECTING the significant points made in each line.
Try again BUT read some limericks OUT LOUD to get the idea...which you haven't got yet.,
Best,
tectak