100,000,000,000,000 poems

The marble tomb gapes wide with jangling keys
That horders of crooks felt they'd more right to own
The understanding critic firstly sees
One gathers rosebuds or grows old alone
To one sweet hour of bliss my memory clings
Whose ocean still-born herrings madly brave
Such merchandise a melancholy brings
As sleeping-bags the silent landscape pave
The fasting fakir doesn't smell the less
What things we did we went the whole darned hog
Watching manure and compost coalesce
With breaking voice across the Alps they slog
The Taj Mahal has trinkets spice and gum
yet from the City's pie pulled not one plum


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.