100,000,000,000,000 poems

The acid tongue with gourmet's expertise
When masons clutch the breath we held on loan
Replies like this the dumbstruck brain may tease
With cherry-pips his cottage floor is sown
It's one of many horrid happenings
When flame a form to wrath ancestral gave
Such merchandise a melancholy brings
Victorious worms grind all into the grave
The genealogist with field and fess
A bird-brain banquet melts bold Mistress Mog
And played their mountain croquet jungle chess
Lobsters for sale must be our apologue
With marble souvenirs then fill a slum
Fried grilled black pudding's still the world's best yum


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.