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The marble tomb gapes wide with jangling keys
When masons clutch the breath we held on loan
The Turks said just take anything you please
One gathers rosebuds or grows old alone
Old Galileo's Pisan offerings
Rejecting ermine to become a knave
Th'outrageous Thames a troubled arrow slings
Etruscan words which Greece and Rome engrave
When dried the terrapin can naught express
Shallots and sharks'fins face the smould'ring log
On wheels the tourist follows hos hostess
One misses cricket hearth and croaking frog
Though bretzels take the dols from board-room drum
For Europe's glory while Fate's harpies strum


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.