100,000,000,000,000 poems

Prose took the minstrel's verse without a squeeze
Since Elgin left his nostrils in the stone
He bent right down and well what did he seize
Normal one aims to be and share the throne
Oh how oh how he hates such pilferings
When flame a form to wrath ancestral gave
He's gone to London how the echo rings
As sleeping-bags the silent landscape pave
Staunch pilgrims longest journeys can't depress
A bird-brain banquet melts bold Mistress Mog
And played their mountain croquet jungle chess
No need to cart such treasures from the fog
Where no one bothered how one warmed one's bum
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.