100,000,000,000,000 poems

At five precisely out went La Marquise
For tea cucumber sandwiches a scone
Replies like this the dumbstruck brain may tease
And loudly sang off-key without a tone
The frisian Isles my friends are cherised things
Signalling gauchos very rarely shave
Th'outrageous Thames a troubled arrow slings
For burning bushes never fish forgave
Poetic licence needs no strain or stress
Or grinning like a pale-faced golliwog
To prove mamma an adult with a tress
One misses cricket hearth and croaking frog
With marble souvenirs then fill a slum
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.