100,000,000,000,000 poems

Prose took the minstrel's verse without a squeeze
His exaltation shocked both youth and crone
Her native chauffeur waited in the breeze
The thumb- and finger-prints of Al Capone
It's one of many horrid happenings
Signalling gauchos very rarely shave
Th'outrageous Thames a troubled arrow slings
As sleeping-bags the silent landscape pave
The wolf devours both sheep and shepherdess
With gravity at gravity's great cog
From cool Parnassus down to wild Loch Ness
We'll suffocate before the epilogue
Ventriloquists be blowed you strike me dumb
A wise loaf always knows its humblest crumb


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.