Sol 6.1

  1. O company of leaders, I am a poet,

    and poetry is free; no reproach attaches to it.

  2. Indeed, I am Saddam; I let my beard grow

    for a while, and the full moon's face is not faulted.

  3. ؟

    ؟

    So why do the foreign brutes seize me by my beard?

    Do the molars and fangs frighten them?

  4. And I am awe-inspiring, even if I am bound,

    for the lion is feared from behind the bars.

  5. ؟

    Why did you not recall how I was revered,

    while the river flowed beneath my majesty?

  6. Twenty airplanes accompany my procession,

    and birds are mustered around them in flocks.

  7. And all of you great leaders around me

    curry favor, and some of you are chamberlains.

  8. () ()

    Amman bears witness, and Rabat; so review

    the summits of defiance—there is no answer to them.

  9. The instinct for falsehood beneath your skins will answer:

    "Saddam, in his absolute power, is the godfather."

  10. I was the one behind whose shoe you stood,

    pubes and mustaches drawing close together.

  11. In the green oasis around his palaces,

    leaders and parties jostle.

  12. And to gain my approval and win my friendship,

    ministers and deputies race one another.

  13. ؟

    ؟

    What have you done, comrades? And what might you

    do? A collaborator has the weight of a fly.

  14. ،

    Certainly—and most of you, against your own brothers,

    are conspirators, deceivers, liars.

  15. ؟!

    And were you not oppressing your peoples,

    like me? And all your throngs are mere tails.

  16. ،

    So if I robbed Iraq and its people

    of their riches, then all of you are plunderers.

  17. And if I sinned by insulting you and bearing you enmity,

    then every one of you is a sinner and a habitual curser.

  18. ؟

    So do you conceal your prostration from the peoples?

    And the West is a lord above the other lords.

  19. Killing and torture are a firmly established law,

    and the Bedouin Arabs have specialized in its art.

  20. O company of leaders, all your talk

    and achievements are conspiracy and rhetoric.

  21. As for the statement, it is the same statement; only

    the pens and writers are replaced.

  22. Do not be alarmed by any plain utterance,

    for an utterance is idle talk, with no punishment for it.

  23. The invaders' agencies know that you are

    the divining arrows and idols sustaining their existence.

  24. And they see the Arabs as a single people,

    with no difference except the robe and the cloak.

  25. And the Arab Muslim is a criminal,

    his thoughts are crime and terrorism.

  26. ؟

    I and Iraq constitute a single item;

    so why are the doors shut against me?

  27. And I am the Iraqi in whose prison

    lie, after the leader, humiliation and torment.

  28. My robe, which I embroidered to bid you farewell—

    the robes were woven on its loom.

  29. Indeed, I drank the cup of deadly poison,

    so that cups may be passed around at your lips.

  30. ،

    You will be captives, sooner or later,

    like me, and the causes may be similar.

  31. And the red conquerors have within their armies

    dogs for your palaces on the day of entry.

  32. ( )

    Repent to—to Sharon—before you depart,

    and seek his forgiveness, for he is ever accepting of repentance.

  33. Pardon me if Arabness has become a ewe,

    and the protectors of its noble people are wolves.

Sol 6.1