Sol 6.1

  1. O dwellers in Aleppo of al-Awasim,

    may the cloud's downpour drench her.

  2. I am a stranger in your city,

    not one of the settled inhabitants.

  3. And the inn brings a stranger

    boredom when he stays there [wording unclear].

  4. So I was worn down by the long stay

    there, and wine became scarce.

  5. And I went out one night,

    heading for Bab al-Salama.

  6. And I drank from a well there;

    whoever comes to it quenches his burning thirst.

  7. And I roamed at ease in its open wastes,

    and climbed, scaling its hillocks.

  8. Then, in one of the hollows, I glimpsed,

    as I sat there, the dark shape of a head.

  9. So I hurried over, thinking it a crow,

    or a kite, or a dove.

  10. And there was a black man, like a prize camel-stallion,

    bearing a cock like a pillar.

  11. And there was an old man beneath him,

    handsome and fair-featured.

  12. And the old man was being squeezed beneath him,

    his belt already soaked with sweat.

  13. So I rebuked the man fucking him; then he said

    to him, 'Do you not see his standing?

  14. Get up, may I be your ransom; perhaps we

    can, by rising, pay him his due,

  15. and return after his departure

    from us, and you spare us his wrangling.'

  16. Then he pounced on him and said, 'Fuck!

    None of that, and no honor for him!

  17. This very fool—

    I have proof of his foolishness.

  18. Were he not a meddler, he would not

    turn his attention toward my anus.'

  19. And he wept and said to me, 'Go, woe to you,

    and ask God for safety.

  20. And thank Him, since your anus

    has come to want no stopper for itself.

  21. And know that I was once among

    the men of authority and leadership.

  22. People would point at me when I passed,

    saying, "That is Ibn Abi Usama."

  23. Until I was afflicted with my rear passage,

    and became a blemish among people.'

  24. I marveled at such eloquence,

    while he was being fucked—and at his impudence:

  25. an old man whose bearing spoke

    to me in the language of a maqama.

  26. And the cock was sinking into his arse;

    it had vanished a man's height deep into his fart-hole.

  27. Then the Abyssinian laughed at him

    and said, 'Do not listen to his words.

  28. This, by your life, has been his habit

    since before he reached the age of wet dreams.

  29. Always, with his arse, he vies

    with the cloud's downpour among mankind.'

  30. And he drew it out of his anus,

    and it was like an ostrich's neck.

Sol 6.1