100,000,000,000,000 poems

When one with t'other straightaway agrees
Through snobbish growing round her hemline zone
Old corned-beef's rusty armour spreads disease
And loudly sang off-key without a tone
How it suprised us pale grey underlings
That metred rhyme alone can souls enslave
The fertile mother changelings drops like kings
Till firemen come with hose-piped tidal wave
When dried the terrapin can naught express
Shallots and sharks'fins face the smould'ring log
The country lane just thrives on farmyard mess
Whiskey will always wake an Irish bog
On fish-slab whale nor seal has never swum
Fried grilled black pudding's still the world's best yum


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.