100,000,000,000,000 poems

The marble tomb gapes wide with jangling keys
His nasal ecstasy beats best Cologne
Upon his old oak chest he cuts his cheese
One gathers rosebuds or grows old alone
How it suprised us pale grey underlings
Rejecting ermine to become a knave
The learning linguist cameramaniac sings
Etruscan words which Greece and Rome engrave
The genealogist with field and fess
What things we did we went the whole darned hog
To prove mamma an adult with a tress
But I can understand you Brogher Gog
And let you off from your opinions glum
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.