100,000,000,000,000 poems

When one with t'other straightaway agrees
That horders of crooks felt they'd more right to own
Replies like this the dumbstruck brain may tease
Which neither time nor tide can long postpone
Oh how oh how he hates such pilferings
That metred rhyme alone can souls enslave
A daring baron pockets precious Mings
Etruscan words which Greece and Rome engrave
When dried the terrapin can naught express
Shallots and sharks'fins face the smould'ring log
The colonel's still escutcheoned in undress
Whiskey will always wake an Irish bog
Where no one bothered how one warmed one's bum
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.