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The marble tomb gapes wide with jangling keys
For tea cucumber sandwiches a scone
He bent right down and well what did he seize
While sharks to let's say potted shrimps are prone
Old Galileo's Pisan offerings
That metred rhyme alone can souls enslave
They both are right not unformed smatterings
Thou homestead hillside woodland rock and cave
When dried the terrapin can naught express
A piercint wit would sprightliest horses flog
Socrates watched his hemlock effervesce
With breaking voice across the Alps they slog
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.