Dictator Poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

Saddam Hussein you didn’t see they played you for a fool, king
today because it suited them, then surplus of requirement;
they hanged you from the rafters as you should be a common
Baghdad thief. They let you strut about dressed in uniform and
all, and you didn’t detect their sniggering voices when they
called you” your Excellency.” You knew in the end, but then it
was too late, yet you made them see how to die with dignity.
Had you been less ambitious you could still be selling cigarettes
by the oil docks and not be reduced to an historical footnote;
and your sons could been selling fake Swiss watches, condoms
and illegal whisky. A proper New Jersey gangster family be, in
the Middle East, eating goat chops every Sunday afternoon.