100,000,000,000,000 poems

From playboy Chance the nymph no longer flees
Since Elgin left his nostrils in the stone
Forms shadowy with indecision wheeze
That suede ferments is not at all well known
The roundabout eats profits made on swings
Filching the lolly country thrift helped save
Proud death quite il-le-gi-ti-mate-ly stings
Thou homestead hillside woodland rock and cave
Platonic Greece was not so talentless
What things we did we went the whole darned hog
While homeward thirsts to each quenched glass say yes
We'll suffocate before the epilogue
With marble souvenirs then fill a slum
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.