100,000,000,000,000 poems

The marble tomb gapes wide with jangling keys
Through snobbish growing round her hemline zone
The showman gargles fire and sword with ease
One gathers rosebuds or grows old alone
The roundabout eats profits made on swings
Filching the lolly country thrift helped save
Proud death quite il-le-gi-ti-mate-ly stings
Victorious worms grind all into the grave
Platonic Greece was not so talentless
With gravity at gravity's great cog
To prove mamma an adult with a tress
Whiskey will always wake an Irish bog
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.