100,000,000,000,000 poems

From playboy Chance the nymph no longer flees
His exaltation shocked both youth and crone
The showman gargles fire and sword with ease
Which neither time nor tide can long postpone
The frisian Isles my friends are cherised things
When flame a form to wrath ancestral gave
An icicle of frozen marrow pings
Victorious worms grind all into the grave
Emboggled minds may puff and blow and guess
With gravity at gravity's great cog
Socrates watched his hemlock effervesce
With breaking voice across the Alps they slog
Poor reader smile before your lips go numb
The bell tolls fee-less fi-less fo-less fum


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.