100,000,000,000,000 poems

The marble tomb gapes wide with jangling keys
The bull's horns ought to dry it like a bone
The Turks said just take anything you please
The thumb- and finger-prints of Al Capone
Oh how oh how he hates such pilferings
Whose ocean still-born herrings madly brave
Proud death quite il-le-gi-ti-mate-ly stings
As sleeping-bags the silent landscape pave
Platonic Greece was not so talentless
In indian summers Englishmen drink grog
Poor Yorick comes to bury not address
Whiskey will always wake an Irish bog
Ventriloquists be blowed you strike me dumb
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.