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The marble tomb gapes wide with jangling keys
His exaltation shocked both youth and crone
Replies like this the dumbstruck brain may tease
While sharks to let's say potted shrimps are prone
O Parthenon you hold the charger's strings
That metred rhyme alone can souls enslave
Th'outrageous Thames a troubled arrow slings
To break a rule Britannia's might might waive
Platonic Greece was not so talentless
A bird-brain banquet melts bold Mistress Mog
Watching manure and compost coalesce
With breaking voice across the Alps they slog
Where no one bothered how one warmed one's bum
For Europe's glory while Fate's harpies strum


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.