May 30, 2026

Bad connection

Al-Farazdaq asked ‘Umar ibn Yazid al-Usaydi to send him some khat kind of horse fodder, and what he received was not to his standard. On meeting him again, the poet said (meter: basīṭ):

      Attention, ‘Umar ibn Yazid! I'm a guy who[se poetry]
          cauterizes madmen on their occiputs.
      May the rustling crop of your garden plots
          blossom with donkey dicks!
      May each engorged prick rearing up from the soil
          be bound [into sheaves of dicks]!

From Muhammad ibn Habib's commentary
on the Collected Poems of al-Farazdaq