100,000,000,000,000 poems

The acid tongue with gourmet's expertise
For tea cucumber sandwiches a scone
The understanding critic firstly sees
While sharks to let's say potted shrimps are prone
And yet 'twas he the beggar Fate just flings
Signalling gauchos very rarely shave
The learning linguist cameramaniac sings
In purest cradels tha's how they behave
Platonic Greece was not so talentless
In indian summers Englishmen drink grog
Poor Yorick comes to bury not address
Their sculptors did our best our hulks the clog
Ventriloquists be blowed you strike me dumb
yet from the City's pie pulled not one plum


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.