100,000,000,000,000 poems

Prose took the minstrel's verse without a squeeze
His exaltation shocked both youth and crone
Upon his old oak chest he cuts his cheese
While sharks to let's say potted shrimps are prone
O Parthenon you hold the charger's strings
Signalling gauchos very rarely shave
A daring baron pockets precious Mings
Etruscan words which Greece and Rome engrave
The peasants's skirts on rainy days she'd tress
In indian summers Englishmen drink grog
Watching manure and compost coalesce
With breaking voice across the Alps they slog
Though bretzels take the dols from board-room drum
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.