100,000,000,000,000 poems

When one with t'other straightaway agrees
His nasal ecstasy beats best Cologne
The understanding critic firstly sees
Which neither time nor tide can long postpone
O Parthenon you hold the charger's strings
That metred rhyme alone can souls enslave
Such merchandise a melancholy brings
In purest cradels tha's how they behave
When dried the terrapin can naught express
What things we did we went the whole darned hog
Poor Yorick comes to bury not address
Their sculptors did our best our hulks the clog
The Taj Mahal has trinkets spice and gum
A wise loaf always knows its humblest crumb


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.