Though the fact is little known in the West, Iranian President Ahmadinejad is a poet, in the style of his great countryman Omar Khayyam

Some specimens of his verse have come into my hands. I reproduce them here for the edification of NRO readers.

THE RUBAIYAT OF PRESIDENT AHMADINEJAD
Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night
Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight:
And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught
A wayward coed — Pull that noose tight!
Dreaming when Dawn’s Left Hand was in the Sky
I heard a Voice within the Tavern cry,
“Awake, my Little ones, and fill the Cup
“And hide that centrifuge — the UN arms inspector’s nigh!”
Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough,
A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse—and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness—
But I must go — we’re whipping up a cartoon row
Ah, fill the Cup:—what boots it to repeat
How Time is slipping underneath our Feet:
Unborn TO-MORROW, and dead YESTERDAY,
To wipe out Israel really would be neat.
The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor slow uranium enrichment one least bit.
Myself when young did eagerly frequent
Doctor and Saint, and heard great Argument
About it and about: but never once
Heard aught about this “Holocaust” the Jews lament.
One Moment in Annihilation’s Waste,
One Moment, of the Well of Life to taste—
The Stars are setting; but with crude
At eighty bucks a barrel, why make haste?
Etc., etc.