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The marble tomb gapes wide with jangling keys
When masons clutch the breath we held on loan
Upon his old oak chest he cuts his cheese
One gathers rosebuds or grows old alone
It's one of many horrid happenings
Whose ocean still-born herrings madly brave
He's gone to London how the echo rings
Etruscan words which Greece and Rome engrave
It's no good rich men crying Heaven Bless
Or grinning like a pale-faced golliwog
To prove mamma an adult with a tress
Their sculptors did our best our hulks the clog
Where no one bothered how one warmed one's bum
The bell tolls fee-less fi-less fo-less fum


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.