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
Which neither time nor tide can long postpone
O Parthenon you hold the charger's strings
That metred rhyme alone can souls enslave
In salads all chew grubs before they've wings
Till firemen come with hose-piped tidal wave
Staunch pilgrims longest journeys can't depress
With quill white-collared through his life will jog
To prove mamma an adult with a tress
With breaking voice across the Alps they slog
Suits lisping Spanish tongues for whom say some
In cognac brandy is Bacardi rum?


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.