100,000,000,000,000 poems

The marble tomb gapes wide with jangling keys
The answer is they could be twins full-grown
The showman gargles fire and sword with ease
Which neither time nor tide can long postpone
O Parthenon you hold the charger's strings
That metred rhyme alone can souls enslave
The fertile mother changelings drops like kings
Victorious worms grind all into the grave
Poetic licence needs no strain or stress
A bird-brain banquet melts bold Mistress Mog
To prove mamma an adult with a tress
With breaking voice across the Alps they slog
The Taj Mahal has trinkets spice and gum
The best of all things to an end must come


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.