In Xanadu, er...Baghdad

did Kublai Khan... um, Saddam decree a...uh, mediocre pleasure dome decree:

Where Tigris the, waste filled river, ran

through qanats dug by man

Down to a sun baked sea.

So twice five meters of trash strewn ground

With T-walls and checkpoints were girdled round:

And there were a couple trees, right with post-no-bills,

Where blossomed not many a pigeon-bearing tree;

And here were parking lots less ancient than the hills,

Enfolding overly sunny spots of mundanity.

But oh ! that shallow sluggish chasm which slanted

Down the green non-hill athwart an urban cover !

A savage place ! as holed and disenchanted

As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted

By woman wailing in fear of her Uday-lover !

And from this qanat, with ceaseless turmoil not seething,

As if this earth in dust filled pants were breathing,

A broken sewer pipe momently was forced :

Amid whose fetid half-intermitted burst

Huge fragments vaulted like horrid hail,

Or plastic bags as the trash collectors fail:

And 'mid these crumbling blocks at once and ever

It flung up momently the Tigris River.

Five kilometers meandering with a sluggish motion

Through palm grove and city front the polluted river ran,

Then reached the qanats dug by man,

And sank in oil slicks to a lifeless ocean :

And 'mid this tumult the now dead Saddam heard from far

Jaish al-Mahdi voices prophesying war !

The shadow of the cement dome of semi-pleasure

Floated midway on the waves ;

Where was heard the honking measure

From the traffic and the drivers' raves.
It was a miracle of traffic device,

A traffic circle blocked by a truck of ice!

A burkha with a dulcimer

In a bazaar once I saw :

It was an Assyrian crone (old),

And her dulcimer for food she sold,

Singing of Chemical Ali.

Could I revive within me

Her cackling and song,

To such a bet 'twould win me,
That with dollars and dinar long,

I would not build that crappy dome in air,

That shabby dome ! those bags of ice !

And all who heard should see them there,

And all should cry, Look There ! Look There !

His baggy eyes, his messy hair !

Weave a noose round him thrice,

And close your eyes with R Rated dread,

For he on Iraqi oil profits hath fed,

And spoilt the milk of Paradise.

My apologizes to Samuel Coleridge.