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He bent right down to pick up his valise
Since Elgin left his nostrils in the stone
Upon his old oak chest he cuts his cheese
The thumb- and finger-prints of Al Capone
Old Galileo's Pisan offerings
When flame a form to wrath ancestral gave
He's gone to London how the echo rings
Etruscan words which Greece and Rome engrave
When dried the terrapin can naught express
With gravity at gravity's great cog
From cool Parnassus down to wild Loch Ness
No need to cart such treasures from the fog
On fish-slab whale nor seal has never swum
They're kings we're mammal-cousins hi ho hum


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.