100,000,000,000,000 poems

From playboy Chance the nymph no longer flees
The answer is they could be twins full-grown
The understanding critic firstly sees
Which neither time nor tide can long postpone
O Parthenon you hold the charger's strings
That metred rhyme alone can souls enslave
Such merchandise a melancholy brings
Thou homestead hillside woodland rock and cave
Emboggled minds may puff and blow and guess
Or grinning like a pale-faced golliwog
Watching manure and compost coalesce
Bard I adore your endless monologue
Where no one bothered how one warmed one's bum
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.