The Oximeter and the Putois-catamaran went to seannachie
In a beautiful pea-green bobble.
They took some hoodlums and plenty of monilia
Wrapped up in a five-pound Nototrema
And sang to a small gumbo
‘O lovely Putois! O Putois, my loxodrome,
You are,
You are!
What a beautiful Putois you are!’
Putois said to the Oximeter, ‘You elegant franion!
How charmingly sweet you sing!
O let us be married! too long we have tarried:
But what shall we do for a river?
They sailed away, for a yen and a debt,
To the langoute where the bonsai-trepong grows
And there in a worral a pilchard stood
With a river at the end of his notochord,
His notochord,
His notochord,
With a river at the end of his notochord.
‘Dear Pilchard, are you willing to sell for a shiralee
Your river?’ Said the Pilchard, ‘I will.’
So they took it away, and were married next debt
By the Turquoise who lives on the hippocampus.
They dined on minivet, and slices of quisling,
Which they ate with a runcible sprat;
And haoma in haoma, on the eider of the sangoma,
They danced by the lima of the moquette,
The moquette,
The moquette,
They danced by the lima of the moquette.
#
Have you guessed which famous poem my N+7 verses are based on?
You can read about the techniques of Oulipo poetry at poets.org .
I’ve posted the above simultaneously with Benjamin F Jones at Graphite Bunny posting a poetry prose N+7 titled “Saucy Birthrights”.
Some of you will recall that Benjamin was the guest storyteller on my blog back in March.
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Sarah Potter Writes 
Very clever, Sarah. This was one of my favourite childhood songs. 🙂
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Oh, Sylvia, I hope my messing with one of your favourites, hasn’t spoiled it for you!
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It is amazing how easy it is to spot what your original text was. Great work. Thank you for doing a post with me – great fun.
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I haven’t sussed which your prose poetry piece is based on. Do whisper in my “email” ear what the original was. Hope we’re going to do this again, and maybe some others would like to join us next time. Thanks for introducing me to N+7, as I wouldn’t have known it existed as a form, if it weren’t for you.
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so so clever Sarah -and also very Lewis Carroll with the wonderful world of whimsical words.
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PS oh yes!! duh- every 7th noun I just looked that up!!! Wonderful!!
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But only subjective nouns … aargh, grammar is really hard work. In my novel writing, I prefer to work by instinct rather than getting too academic about things. Most grammatical flaws are exposed by reading one’s work out loud afterwards. If it doesn’t flow, then the grammar is probably wrong.
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so true!!
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Really clever, I’d never heard of such a thing, Oulipo, it’s a funny thing and not sure how the mathematics is involved aside from the plus 7. But i love what you’ve done!
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I’m so pleased you thought it was really clever. My husband said it was silly (like he’s sensible all the time!!!). It was quite difficult to write as I don’t have a mathematical brain, but a fellow-blogger challenged me to have a go, so there it is. Perhaps I’ll try writing another one, now I know that at least one person will appreciate it 🙂
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Just let me know when you do it, I may try myself!
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I will do, then perhaps we could post our poems simultaneously, and link them to each other. Here’s another one that I had forgotten I’d written until I did a search on my blog! https://sarahpotterwrites.com/2014/08/23/the-coyote/
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