100,000,000,000,000 poems

The marble tomb gapes wide with jangling keys
Licks round carved marble chops on snails full-blown
Her native chauffeur waited in the breeze
Normal one aims to be and share the throne
How it suprised us pale grey underlings
When flame a form to wrath ancestral gave
An icicle of frozen marrow pings
Thou homestead hillside woodland rock and cave
The genealogist with field and fess
And starve the sniveling baby like a dog
And played their mountain croquet jungle chess
Southern baroque's seductive dialogue
Do bank clerks rule their abacus by thumb
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.