1. If I had a soul that was patient for what
I encountered, but I have no soul

2. Why should I stay with those whose
Noses are like the horns of young mountain goats?

3. I have a funeral because of their bad deeds
And they have, because of my good praises, a wedding

4. I planted praise among them
Hoping for gain, but that planting bore no fruit

5. Their old man and master
Is for your life a cold, lifeless statue

6. Like a stable boy holding his stick
Going about with dryness behind him

7. While the honest counselor next to
The minister is like a lame old goat

8. And you know Abu Al-Futuh
And Suhail is like a sneaking dog

9. The wicked irrigation director acts
Without any closeness or intimacy

10. While Abu Al-Ghanaim in his foolishness
Rises up without any past

11. Al-Zawzani is cold and rude
Like death, in him are coldness and dryness

12. If the light of the sun were in his hand
Out of stinginess the sun would not rise

13. I am one who speaks gently, that is, I
Am softer than his movements are holy

14. While Muhammad the butcher, his arrogance
Forgetting the butcher's craft

15. And Huraybah the tax collector, his treasurer
Is a penny-pinching miser as though toothless

16. The wealth of the land has come freely into his hand
While the value of his head is a cent

17. These are the affairs of the king altogether
Its outcome because of them is misfortune

18. And I had decided to leave them
And you would find me leading a blameless life

19. But two things kept me from leaving them
My knowledge that people had sunk low

20. Who then can I desire and choose?
Affliction has spread and confusion abounds

21. The imitator, poor thing, has no
Mind, opinion, or grit

22. He builds and destroys what he erects
So that he is like one burning incense

23. That, while his lieutenant
Is like a stupid, cold, half-witted dog

24. A man, but he has no
Wife, but she has no...

25. While Abu Shaja in his pillow
Is like a mute, nay, lower than a mute

26. My son Jahir hopes while they
Were just yesterday the closest of frowning faces

27. The height of their affairs, if unrestrained
No rumor would spread about them or the price of tamarind rise

28. By God, if they owned the heavens they still would
Not have self-respect, or dignity, or become unsoiled

29. Should I seek out Abu Ibrahim's door?
Alas! Hope is dashed and so is judgment

30. Imprisoned he was, and he had generosity
But generosity and imprisonment are gone

31. Should I plead to his nephew hoping
For a pension from him like a coat of mail?

32. I gave up on the Turks
Until we thought they were fleas