100,000,000,000,000 poems

Prose took the minstrel's verse without a squeeze
When masons clutch the breath we held on loan
The showman gargles fire and sword with ease
While sharks to let's say potted shrimps are prone
How it suprised us pale grey underlings
The North Wind Bites into his architrave
Such merchandise a melancholy brings
For burning bushes never fish forgave
The peasants's skirts on rainy days she'd tress
Shallots and sharks'fins face the smould'ring log
Poor Yorick comes to bury not address
With breaking voice across the Alps they slog
Poor reader smile before your lips go numb
The best of all things to an end must come


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.