1. Whatever you cluck, cluck,
Whether early or late,

2. Become Shia or Sunni,
Jew or Christian,

3. Kurd or Arab,
Playing the racial card,

4. Become secular or liberal,
Be reasonable or reactionary,

5.
If you aspire to rise

6. Forward or backward,
Be good like the virtuous

7. Or prosperous like the rich,

8. And if you cannot find
A father of noble descent,

9. Or an ancestor to be proud of
With pure lineage,

10.
And you see no merit in yourself

11. To take pride in,
Like one whose pride

12. His own soul detests,

13. Then seek another father,
However lowly,

14. Go to the Bedouins,
Nomads and settlers alike,

15.
And take ancestors from them,

16. Brand new ones, and fabricate,
Become more Bedouin, get fired up

17. And roughen up,

18. In an era of atoms, regress
To nomadism.

19. Turn and twist with the ages
In countless ways.

20.
Do as you wish,

21. Make no excuses,
To whom? The people? They

22. Are trash in hellfire,

23. The slaves of your ancestors,
Both tamed and hired.

24. Or to the laws which
Preach not but babble

25.
From the pulpit about good and evil

26. While shunning good
And winking at evil

27. In the twinkle of an eye?

28. Or to conscience, a construct
Of these mortals?

29. An excuse for the fasting
A frolic for the glutton?

30.
To whom? History?

31. It is in the hands
Of the scribe, obedient

32. To the whims of the ruler.

33. With a dirham he can turn
The course of events, O writer.

34. Future generations may read
In the annals of these proceedings,

35.
That this was a golden age,

36. All glitter and gloss,
Or to the measures others

37. Have deemed right?

38. Every measure proclaims
My brother Cluck innocent.

39.
Whatever you cluck, if a people

40. Is hungry or morality bare,

41. Or all six millions unanimously
Grumble,

42. Or women rule with the might
Of the usurper,

43.
Or someone yells "pillage"

44. Calling buyer and seller,
Or a law is passed

45. In records and lines,

46. Or the innocent taken
For the criminal's deed, cluck,

47.
Or Iraq is handed over

48. To humiliation or ruin,

49. Then judge, rule,
Be praised and rewarded.

50.
Whatever you cluck, rejoice

51. And say "God is great,"

52. Beat drums for all
That disgraces the gallant,

53.
Sing praises to Ma'mun

54. And thank the maimed.

55. Give a frog's traits
To a tiger.

56.
Usurp for a cockroach

57. The lion's regalia,

58. And perfume the filth,
With praise, incense it.

59.
Turn a clown

60. Into a garden of flowers.

61. Portray darkness as light
Like the brilliant dawn,

62.
And dress the fool and idiot

63. In a genius's robe.

64. Pour over the perverts
The armor of Antar.

65.
If told their glory

66. Is fake, denounce it,

67. Or that their might
Is that of the colonizer,

68.
And that the foreigner

69. Is a sly old fox,

70. Lower than a fly
In a filthy bathroom,

71.
It can freely fly,

72. Its wings unhindered,

73. While without borrowed wings
That one cannot fly.

74.
Then disagree and deny,

75. Distort and fabricate.

76. Whatever you cluck, follow
Their ways and example,

77.
Face your day from

78. Theirs, and turn your back,

79. Take your affairs
From theirs, heap and hoard,

80.
Be a savior then give up

81. Your soul and be saved,

82. If they lengthen, you lengthen,
If they shorten, you shorten,

83.
If they sin, make excuses,

84. If they warn, rejoice,

85. If they err, say
"To each his star,"

86.
Or if they oppress, come out

87. With oppression in all its forms,

88. The oppressed's hand is tied,
Neither avenged nor aided,

89.
Or if they did what no logic