100,000,000,000,000 poems

Don Pedro from his shirt has washed the fleas
For tea cucumber sandwiches a scone
Replies like this the dumbstruck brain may tease
With cherry-pips his cottage floor is sown
The frisian Isles my friends are cherised things
Filching the lolly country thrift helped save
Proud death quite il-le-gi-ti-mate-ly stings
In purest cradels tha's how they behave
Emboggled minds may puff and blow and guess
Or grinning like a pale-faced golliwog
To prove mamma an adult with a tress
With breaking voice across the Alps they slog
On fish-slab whale nor seal has never swum
In cognac brandy is Bacardi rum?


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.