1. Before you lament the lost genius
Curse those who brought these conditions

2. Curse those who wanted you to die while they live
Worried that you may go free

3. Curse those who want gangs to live
While the people starve and scrape by

4. Heal me, for in my chest is a heart
That laments its lifelong pains

5. If only I were with the Bedouins on earth
Wandering, grazing goats bleating

6. My eyes won't see the homes, my ears won't hear
What they cannot bear hearing

7. Take a stroll with me to see the contempt
For the nation, ignorance and mass misery

8. You'll find the hut empty of the ravages of time
The house crumbling and falling apart

9. And you won't hear anything but the heartbeats
Thudding, shattering hopes in fear

10. For the tax collectors have come to plunder the living
By force, as a profession, in humiliation

11. This farmer is left with nothing
But his honor, which he'd hate to sell

12. After ten slow, heavy decades
Like winds that blew a sail back and forth

13. Suffering taught us pain in every shade
And showed us death moment by moment

14. We tried, indeed we tried our best
And we were convinced, indeed convinced

15. And we regretted - but can we make up
For what we did wrong and invented?

16. If we asked the spilled blood, it would say
Boiling with fervor and zeal:

17. "May God fill your homes with my haunting ghost
A terrifying phantom shaking your core

18. And you've become so horrified
You deny sight and hearing

19. You think the world is green scorpions
And the paths filled with hyenas

20. The nights are pitch black without a star
And days pass gloomy and quick

21. If only you had flown like a ray
In return for the souls you shone light on

22. With rousing hopes you led them
To dreams, and they followed devotedly

23. And you claimed a future - if seen
It wouldn't have placed any conditions

24. Is this why you've bled me dry until
A thousand honors and realms are public?

25. Was I alone the courage among you?
Or can you no longer muster any bravery?

26. All this - and you didn't defend lands
Where I was born and you didn't defend

27. This property has been grossly devalued
But God won't let you exploit it further

28. Tell those whose feet I licked as slaves
And whose lands and farms I gave them

29. My people's living isn't worth
Your shining shoes, tell them!

30. People marched ahead confidently
While we regressed faltering back

31. Chasing unworthy, wretched individuals
The whole nation given out as land grants

32. They stabbed in the heart those the people
Trust and set up bandits in their place

33. They filled them with traitors, degenerates
And crooks - a train filled with trivial goods

34. Then poured them onto the tormented nation
Like a whip whose lashes make people beg

35. Many a genius that was sorely needed
To shine light on disasters faded away

36. And writers retreated into their homes
When the disgrace of defeat shattered their motivation

37. The homes of Iraq are filled with hearts
Burning, complaining of all kinds of pain

38. And efforts that were crushed when
The country needed them to benefit

39. It's as if all the free united
To take revenge for souls wronged

40. Help me get back at souls imprisoned by injustice
And be my proxy against evil, measure for measure

41. Aid me with a poet and writer
And uncover what you see veiled

42. Neither sentiment nor free pen are wanted
If they are fearful and anxious

43. Ignite the fire - it's the lesser evil
Don't ignite temperaments

44. These forces are about to unite
Soon threatening society itself

45. The power of nations blew away
The firmest nations of earth, uprooting them

46. This struggle, my blood, between the people
And injustice has prolonged the fight"