100,000,000,000,000 poems

He bent right down to pick up his valise
The answer is they could be twins full-grown
The showman gargles fire and sword with ease
With cherry-pips his cottage floor is sown
Oh how oh how he hates such pilferings
When flame a form to wrath ancestral gave
Such merchandise a melancholy brings
To break a rule Britannia's might might waive
The genealogist with field and fess
With quill white-collared through his life will jog
To prove mamma an adult with a tress
Their sculptors did our best our hulks the clog
Poor reader smile before your lips go numb
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.