100,000,000,000,000 poems

From playboy Chance the nymph no longer flees
When masons clutch the breath we held on loan
Replies like this the dumbstruck brain may tease
The thumb- and finger-prints of Al Capone
The roundabout eats profits made on swings
That metred rhyme alone can souls enslave
Such merchandise a melancholy brings
Thou homestead hillside woodland rock and cave
The wolf devours both sheep and shepherdess
A piercint wit would sprightliest horses flog
Socrates watched his hemlock effervesce
Bard I adore your endless monologue
Where no one bothered how one warmed one's bum
yet from the City's pie pulled not one plum


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.