100,000,000,000,000 poems

The acid tongue with gourmet's expertise
His nasal ecstasy beats best Cologne
The understanding critic firstly sees
The thumb- and finger-prints of Al Capone
O Parthenon you hold the charger's strings
The North Wind Bites into his architrave
Such merchandise a melancholy brings
Till firemen come with hose-piped tidal wave
The wolf devours both sheep and shepherdess
With quill white-collared through his life will jog
To prove mamma an adult with a tress
One misses cricket hearth and croaking frog
On fish-slab whale nor seal has never swum
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.