clerihews

I'm reading Mark Kurlansky's Salt: A World History [Amazon], which, like his earlier book on Cod, is a wealth of facts, somewhat facts, and trivial information so trivial even I have not previously learned it.

Random example. In the section on the discovery of sodium, the first point Kurlansky makes about Sir Humphry Davy, said discoverer, is that he had the first clerihew written about him. A clerihew is "a pseudo-biographical verse of two rhymed couplets in which the subejct's name makes one of the rhymes." As in: "Sir Humphry Davy/Abominated gravy./He lived in odium/Of having discovered sodium."

Importantly, the definition does not say anything about good verse.

Kurlansky also relates, charmingly, that at a young age Davy was offered "a job researching medical uses of gasses, which may have been a twenty-year-old's dream job."

Anyway. Having learned what a clerihew is, I of course had to take some time out of my day to compose one. And I've come to the important preliminary conclusion that very little rhymes with "Laszlo." Here's a shot:

Joseph Laszlo
Happy? Alas, no.
A brain as large as a mid-size planet
And a heart that's made of solid granite.

Perhaps I'll stick to haiku.