100,000,000,000,000 poems

Prose took the minstrel's verse without a squeeze
The answer is they could be twins full-grown
Her native chauffeur waited in the breeze
Normal one aims to be and share the throne
It's one of many horrid happenings
Whose ocean still-born herrings madly brave
Such merchandise a melancholy brings
The nicest kids for strickiest toffees crave
The genealogist with field and fess
And starve the sniveling baby like a dog
The colonel's still escutcheoned in undress
Their sculptors did our best our hulks the clog
Do bank clerks rule their abacus by thumb
A wise loaf always knows its humblest crumb


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.