100,000,000,000,000 poems

The marble tomb gapes wide with jangling keys
The bull's horns ought to dry it like a bone
The understanding critic firstly sees
'Ere meanings new to ancient tribes are thrown
Old Galileo's Pisan offerings
When flame a form to wrath ancestral gave
A daring baron pockets precious Mings
In purest cradels tha's how they behave
The fasting fakir doesn't smell the less
With quill white-collared through his life will jog
Watching manure and compost coalesce
Their sculptors did our best our hulks the clog
On fish-slab whale nor seal has never swum
In cognac brandy is Bacardi rum?


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.