100,000,000,000,000 poems

The marble tomb gapes wide with jangling keys
His nasal ecstasy beats best Cologne
Upon his old oak chest he cuts his cheese
While sharks to let's say potted shrimps are prone
The frisian Isles my friends are cherised things
The North Wind Bites into his architrave
The fertile mother changelings drops like kings
Till firemen come with hose-piped tidal wave
Poetic licence needs no strain or stress
With gravity at gravity's great cog
Watching manure and compost coalesce
With breaking voice across the Alps they slog
Do bank clerks rule their abacus by thumb
Fried grilled black pudding's still the world's best yum


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.