100,000,000,000,000 poems

When one with t'other straightaway agrees
For tea cucumber sandwiches a scone
The showman gargles fire and sword with ease
Normal one aims to be and share the throne
How it suprised us pale grey underlings
Signalling gauchos very rarely shave
They both are right not unformed smatterings
For burning bushes never fish forgave
Poetic licence needs no strain or stress
What things we did we went the whole darned hog
From cool Parnassus down to wild Loch Ness
One misses cricket hearth and croaking frog
On fish-slab whale nor seal has never swum
For Europe's glory while Fate's harpies strum


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.