100,000,000,000,000 poems

The acid tongue with gourmet's expertise
Licks round carved marble chops on snails full-blown
The understanding critic firstly sees
And empty cages show life's bird has flown
Oh how oh how he hates such pilferings
Whose ocean still-born herrings madly brave
They both are right not unformed smatterings
Etruscan words which Greece and Rome engrave
Staunch pilgrims longest journeys can't depress
With quill white-collared through his life will jog
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
For Europe's glory while Fate's harpies strum


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.