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He bent right down to pick up his valise
When masons clutch the breath we held on loan
Replies like this the dumbstruck brain may tease
And empty cages show life's bird has flown
How it suprised us pale grey underlings
Signalling gauchos very rarely shave
An icicle of frozen marrow pings
That every verbal shock aims to deprave
The fasting fakir doesn't smell the less
What things we did we went the whole darned hog
The colonel's still escutcheoned in undress
Their sculptors did our best our hulks the clog
With marble souvenirs then fill a slum
They're kings we're mammal-cousins hi ho hum


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.