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Don Pedro from his shirt has washed the fleas
Licks round carved marble chops on snails full-blown
Old corned-beef's rusty armour spreads disease
With cherry-pips his cottage floor is sown
O Parthenon you hold the charger's strings
Filching the lolly country thrift helped save
Proud death quite il-le-gi-ti-mate-ly stings
Thou homestead hillside woodland rock and cave
The fasting fakir doesn't smell the less
With quill white-collared through his life will jog
To prove mamma an adult with a tress
Lobsters for sale must be our apologue
Suits lisping Spanish tongues for whom say some
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.