100,000,000,000,000 poems

Don Pedro from his shirt has washed the fleas
The answer is they could be twins full-grown
Replies like this the dumbstruck brain may tease
And empty cages show life's bird has flown
The frisian Isles my friends are cherised things
Rejecting ermine to become a knave
Such merchandise a melancholy brings
In purest cradels tha's how they behave
The peasants's skirts on rainy days she'd tress
Or grinning like a pale-faced golliwog
Watching manure and compost coalesce
Whiskey will always wake an Irish bog
With marble souvenirs then fill a slum
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.