100,000,000,000,000 poems

From playboy Chance the nymph no longer flees
When masons clutch the breath we held on loan
Old corned-beef's rusty armour spreads disease
Which neither time nor tide can long postpone
O Parthenon you hold the charger's strings
Nought can the mouse's timid nibbling stave
The fertile mother changelings drops like kings
Etruscan words which Greece and Rome engrave
The peasants's skirts on rainy days she'd tress
In indian summers Englishmen drink grog
And played their mountain croquet jungle chess
We'll suffocate before the epilogue
Poor reader smile before your lips go numb
The best of all things to an end must come


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.