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
And loudly sang off-key without a tone
It's one of many horrid happenings
That metred rhyme alone can souls enslave
Proud death quite il-le-gi-ti-mate-ly stings
The nicest kids for strickiest toffees crave
Emboggled minds may puff and blow and guess
And starve the sniveling baby like a dog
From cool Parnassus down to wild Loch Ness
One misses cricket hearth and croaking frog
With marble souvenirs then fill a slum
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.