100,000,000,000,000 poems

From playboy Chance the nymph no longer flees
Licks round carved marble chops on snails full-blown
Replies like this the dumbstruck brain may tease
And empty cages show life's bird has flown
Oh how oh how he hates such pilferings
That metred rhyme alone can souls enslave
A daring baron pockets precious Mings
Victorious worms grind all into the grave
Staunch pilgrims longest journeys can't depress
With quill white-collared through his life will jog
Poor Yorick comes to bury not address
Their sculptors did our best our hulks the clog
Suits lisping Spanish tongues for whom say some
And lessors' dates have all too short a sum


Raymond Queneau

Translation to English by Stanley Chapman
found in "Oulipo Compendium"
Atlas 1998, ISBN 0-947757-96-1

Idea and implementation by Magnus Bodin 1997
Produced in the wonderful country of Sweden.