100,000,000,000,000 poems

The wild horse champs the Parthenon's top frieze
That horders of crooks felt they'd more right to own
Replies like this the dumbstruck brain may tease
And empty cages show life's bird has flown
They both are right not untamed mutterings
When flame a form to wrath ancestral gave
The fertile mother changelings drops like kings
In purest cradels tha's how they behave
The genealogist with field and fess
Shallots and sharks'fins face the smould'ring log
On wheels the tourist follows hos hostess
With breaking voice across the Alps they slog
On fish-slab whale nor seal has never swum
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.