100,000,000,000,000 poems

He bent right down to pick up his valise
His nasal ecstasy beats best Cologne
The Turks said just take anything you please
While sharks to let's say potted shrimps are prone
Oh how oh how he hates such pilferings
That metred rhyme alone can souls enslave
The learning linguist cameramaniac sings
As sleeping-bags the silent landscape pave
It's no good rich men crying Heaven Bless
With quill white-collared through his life will jog
The country lane just thrives on farmyard mess
Their sculptors did our best our hulks the clog
With marble souvenirs then fill a slum
And lessors' dates have all too short a sum


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.