100,000,000,000,000 poems

The marble tomb gapes wide with jangling keys
Through snobbish growing round her hemline zone
Replies like this the dumbstruck brain may tease
Which neither time nor tide can long postpone
And yet 'twas he the beggar Fate just flings
Whose ocean still-born herrings madly brave
Th'outrageous Thames a troubled arrow slings
Thou homestead hillside woodland rock and cave
The wolf devours both sheep and shepherdess
And starve the sniveling baby like a dog
Poor Yorick comes to bury not address
We'll suffocate before the epilogue
The Taj Mahal has trinkets spice and gum
They're kings we're mammal-cousins hi ho hum


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.