100,000,000,000,000 poems

The acid tongue with gourmet's expertise
Licks round carved marble chops on snails full-blown
Old corned-beef's rusty armour spreads disease
Normal one aims to be and share the throne
O Parthenon you hold the charger's strings
With sombre thoughts they grimly line the nave
The learning linguist cameramaniac sings
Till firemen come with hose-piped tidal wave
It's no good rich men crying Heaven Bless
One tongue will do to keep the verse agog
Poor Yorick comes to bury not address
We'll suffocate before the epilogue
The Taj Mahal has trinkets spice and gum
Fried grilled black pudding's still the world's best yum


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.