100,000,000,000,000 poems

The marble tomb gapes wide with jangling keys
For tea cucumber sandwiches a scone
Replies like this the dumbstruck brain may tease
The thumb- and finger-prints of Al Capone
It's one of many horrid happenings
When flame a form to wrath ancestral gave
The learning linguist cameramaniac sings
In purest cradels tha's how they behave
When dried the terrapin can naught express
Or grinning like a pale-faced golliwog
To prove mamma an adult with a tress
One misses cricket hearth and croaking frog
The Taj Mahal has trinkets spice and gum
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.