100,000,000,000,000 poems

The wild horse champs the Parthenon's top frieze
When masons clutch the breath we held on loan
The understanding critic firstly sees
And empty cages show life's bird has flown
They both are right not untamed mutterings
Rejecting ermine to become a knave
The fertile mother changelings drops like kings
For burning bushes never fish forgave
Emboggled minds may puff and blow and guess
With quill white-collared through his life will jog
The colonel's still escutcheoned in undress
Southern baroque's seductive dialogue
Where no one bothered how one warmed one's bum
yet from the City's pie pulled not one plum


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.