100,000,000,000,000 poems

The acid tongue with gourmet's expertise
The answer is they could be twins full-grown
The Turks said just take anything you please
'Ere meanings new to ancient tribes are thrown
To one sweet hour of bliss my memory clings
Were pots graffiti'd over by a slave
Th'outrageous Thames a troubled arrow slings
Etruscan words which Greece and Rome engrave
The wolf devours both sheep and shepherdess
One tongue will do to keep the verse agog
The colonel's still escutcheoned in undress
We'll suffocate before the epilogue
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.