100,000,000,000,000 poems

The marble tomb gapes wide with jangling keys
For tea cucumber sandwiches a scone
The understanding critic firstly sees
Which neither time nor tide can long postpone
Oh how oh how he hates such pilferings
When flame a form to wrath ancestral gave
The fertile mother changelings drops like kings
As sleeping-bags the silent landscape pave
Poetic licence needs no strain or stress
One tongue will do to keep the verse agog
On wheels the tourist follows hos hostess
We'll suffocate before the epilogue
The Taj Mahal has trinkets spice and gum
In cognac brandy is Bacardi rum?


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.