100,000,000,000,000 poems

The acid tongue with gourmet's expertise
The bull's horns ought to dry it like a bone
Replies like this the dumbstruck brain may tease
One gathers rosebuds or grows old alone
The frisian Isles my friends are cherised things
Nought can the mouse's timid nibbling stave
The fertile mother changelings drops like kings
Till firemen come with hose-piped tidal wave
Poetic licence needs no strain or stress
In indian summers Englishmen drink grog
Poor Yorick comes to bury not address
Their sculptors did our best our hulks the clog
Do bank clerks rule their abacus by thumb
Soliloquies predict great things old chum


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.