100,000,000,000,000 poems

Prose took the minstrel's verse without a squeeze
The answer is they could be twins full-grown
Replies like this the dumbstruck brain may tease
One gathers rosebuds or grows old alone
The roundabout eats profits made on swings
The North Wind Bites into his architrave
Such merchandise a melancholy brings
Etruscan words which Greece and Rome engrave
Staunch pilgrims longest journeys can't depress
With gravity at gravity's great cog
From cool Parnassus down to wild Loch Ness
We'll suffocate before the epilogue
Where no one bothered how one warmed one's bum
And lessors' dates have all too short a sum


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.