100,000,000,000,000 poems

The marble tomb gapes wide with jangling keys
Licks round carved marble chops on snails full-blown
The understanding critic firstly sees
One gathers rosebuds or grows old alone
To one sweet hour of bliss my memory clings
When flame a form to wrath ancestral gave
He's gone to London how the echo rings
Thou homestead hillside woodland rock and cave
It's no good rich men crying Heaven Bless
A piercint wit would sprightliest horses flog
And played their mountain croquet jungle chess
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.