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Don Pedro from his shirt has washed the fleas
The bull's horns ought to dry it like a bone
Replies like this the dumbstruck brain may tease
Normal one aims to be and share the throne
They both are right not untamed mutterings
With sombre thoughts they grimly line the nave
They both are right not unformed smatterings
That every verbal shock aims to deprave
The peasants's skirts on rainy days she'd tress
Shallots and sharks'fins face the smould'ring log
From cool Parnassus down to wild Loch Ness
Whiskey will always wake an Irish bog
Do bank clerks rule their abacus by thumb
In cognac brandy is Bacardi rum?


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.