1. Leave this one be and turn your poetry to one
Who raves and recites his verses like a libertine,

2. And remind him of the severed headband and his cheek
Split open by Muhanad's iron sword long ago,

3. The restive blades and picks that pierce and blind
Like the swooping eagle's talons that crush and tear.

4. You ate his wealth and left him
To wander each palace in Damascus now laid bare,

5. And you left him naked, shamed by you, a hostage
Never mentioned but to scorn like an enslaved bird.

6. Othman was your uncle yet you are not like him
And the clan of Umayyah by you seems but a fool,

7. Your father's sons, their dreams are paltry things,
Debased souls in the company of any chance guest.

8. Faint hearts amidst the wars, servile,
Turning like weathervanes in the lightest breeze,

9. Their swords in war all hang limp like teeth
Yanked out, hammers that will not strike or turn.

10. Their lives disgrace their dead gone down before
And the dead are shamed by their forgotten bones.

11. You never saw that when I roared against you
It was the look the wolf gives the butcher's knife.

12. Eyes cast down, heads bowed in shame
The look a slave gives to the mighty lord above.