100,000,000,000,000 poems

When one with t'other straightaway agrees
Licks round carved marble chops on snails full-blown
The Turks said just take anything you please
'Ere meanings new to ancient tribes are thrown
How it suprised us pale grey underlings
Nought can the mouse's timid nibbling stave
Proud death quite il-le-gi-ti-mate-ly stings
As sleeping-bags the silent landscape pave
Staunch pilgrims longest journeys can't depress
With gravity at gravity's great cog
While homeward thirsts to each quenched glass say yes
We'll suffocate before the epilogue
On fish-slab whale nor seal has never swum
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.