100,000,000,000,000 poems

From playboy Chance the nymph no longer flees
That horders of crooks felt they'd more right to own
Replies like this the dumbstruck brain may tease
One gathers rosebuds or grows old alone
Oh how oh how he hates such pilferings
When flame a form to wrath ancestral gave
The learning linguist cameramaniac sings
To break a rule Britannia's might might waive
The genealogist with field and fess
Or grinning like a pale-faced golliwog
From cool Parnassus down to wild Loch Ness
With breaking voice across the Alps they slog
Poor reader smile before your lips go numb
For Europe's glory while Fate's harpies strum


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.