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
Were pots graffiti'd over by a slave
A daring baron pockets precious Mings
Till firemen come with hose-piped tidal wave
Staunch pilgrims longest journeys can't depress
With quill white-collared through his life will jog
The country lane just thrives on farmyard mess
One misses cricket hearth and croaking frog
Ventriloquists be blowed you strike me dumb
Soliloquies predict great things old chum


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.