100,000,000,000,000 poems

The marble tomb gapes wide with jangling keys
Through snobbish growing round her hemline zone
The Turks said just take anything you please
Which neither time nor tide can long postpone
To one sweet hour of bliss my memory clings
Rejecting ermine to become a knave
In salads all chew grubs before they've wings
For burning bushes never fish forgave
It's no good rich men crying Heaven Bless
With quill white-collared through his life will jog
The colonel's still escutcheoned in undress
But I can understand you Brogher Gog
The Taj Mahal has trinkets spice and gum
And lessors' dates have all too short a sum


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.