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From playboy Chance the nymph no longer flees
The answer is they could be twins full-grown
Her native chauffeur waited in the breeze
One gathers rosebuds or grows old alone
And yet 'twas he the beggar Fate just flings
The North Wind Bites into his architrave
Such merchandise a melancholy brings
For burning bushes never fish forgave
The fasting fakir doesn't smell the less
With gravity at gravity's great cog
The colonel's still escutcheoned in undress
Their sculptors did our best our hulks the clog
Where no one bothered how one warmed one's bum
A wise loaf always knows its humblest crumb


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.