100,000,000,000,000 poems

Don Pedro from his shirt has washed the fleas
Through snobbish growing round her hemline zone
Old corned-beef's rusty armour spreads disease
While sharks to let's say potted shrimps are prone
The roundabout eats profits made on swings
Were pots graffiti'd over by a slave
Such merchandise a melancholy brings
Victorious worms grind all into the grave
Emboggled minds may puff and blow and guess
Or grinning like a pale-faced golliwog
The colonel's still escutcheoned in undress
Whiskey will always wake an Irish bog
Poor reader smile before your lips go numb
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.