100,000,000,000,000 poems

The marble tomb gapes wide with jangling keys
For tea cucumber sandwiches a scone
The showman gargles fire and sword with ease
Normal one aims to be and share the throne
It's one of many horrid happenings
Filching the lolly country thrift helped save
The learning linguist cameramaniac sings
For burning bushes never fish forgave
Platonic Greece was not so talentless
With gravity at gravity's great cog
Socrates watched his hemlock effervesce
Southern baroque's seductive dialogue
With marble souvenirs then fill a slum
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.