100,000,000,000,000 poems

From playboy Chance the nymph no longer flees
Licks round carved marble chops on snails full-blown
The Turks said just take anything you please
That suede ferments is not at all well known
Old Galileo's Pisan offerings
Were pots graffiti'd over by a slave
Proud death quite il-le-gi-ti-mate-ly stings
To break a rule Britannia's might might waive
Poetic licence needs no strain or stress
With quill white-collared through his life will jog
Socrates watched his hemlock effervesce
With breaking voice across the Alps they slog
With marble souvenirs then fill a slum
They're kings we're mammal-cousins hi ho hum


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.