100,000,000,000,000 poems

Prose took the minstrel's verse without a squeeze
The answer is they could be twins full-grown
His toga rumpled high above his knees
Normal one aims to be and share the throne
Oh how oh how he hates such pilferings
With sombre thoughts they grimly line the nave
An icicle of frozen marrow pings
That every verbal shock aims to deprave
Poetic licence needs no strain or stress
And starve the sniveling baby like a dog
Watching manure and compost coalesce
Their sculptors did our best our hulks the clog
Where no one bothered how one warmed one's bum
Soliloquies predict great things old chum


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.