100,000,000,000,000 poems

From playboy Chance the nymph no longer flees
When masons clutch the breath we held on loan
Replies like this the dumbstruck brain may tease
Normal one aims to be and share the throne
How it suprised us pale grey underlings
With sombre thoughts they grimly line the nave
In salads all chew grubs before they've wings
As sleeping-bags the silent landscape pave
The peasants's skirts on rainy days she'd tress
And starve the sniveling baby like a dog
And played their mountain croquet jungle chess
We'll suffocate before the epilogue
On fish-slab whale nor seal has never swum
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.