100,000,000,000,000 poems

He bent right down to pick up his valise
That horders of crooks felt they'd more right to own
His toga rumpled high above his knees
With cherry-pips his cottage floor is sown
They both are right not untamed mutterings
With sombre thoughts they grimly line the nave
They both are right not unformed smatterings
That every verbal shock aims to deprave
Staunch pilgrims longest journeys can't depress
With quill white-collared through his life will jog
Socrates watched his hemlock effervesce
Bard I adore your endless monologue
Do bank clerks rule their abacus by thumb
yet from the City's pie pulled not one plum


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.