Luyện nghe bài hát Leaving Beirut

So we left Willa and I
He headed East to Baghdad and the of it
I set out
I walked the or six miles to the last of the street lamps
And hunkered in the curb dusk
Holding out my
In no great hope at the ramshackle procession of home traffic
Success!
An ancient Mercedes '
The ubiquitous, Arab, shared drew up
I turned out my pockets and shrugged at the
" J'ai pas de "
" Venez! " A soft voice the back seat
The driver lent wearily across and pushed open the door
I stooped to look at the two men there
One besuited, bespectacled, moustached, irritated, distant,
The other, the one who had spoken,
Frail, fifty five-ish, bald, sallow, in a short sleeved pale cotton shirt
one biro in the breast pocket
A clerk maybe, sunken in the seat
"Venez!" He again, and smiled
"Mais pas de l'argent"
"Oui, Oui, d'accord, Venez!"

Are these the people that we bomb
Are we so sure they us harm
Is our pleasure, punishment or crime
Is this a mountain we really want to climb
The road is hard, hard and
Put down that two by
This man would never turn you from his
Oh George! Oh George!
That Texas education must have fucked you up when you were very

He beckoned with a small arthritic of his hand
Fingers together like a child waving
The driver put my old Hofner in the boot with my rucksack
And off we
" etes Francais, monsieur? "
" Non, "
" Ah! "
" Est-ce que vous Anglais, Monsieur? "
"Non, je regrette"
And so on
In small talk between strangers, his French alien but
Mine but eager to please
A lift, after all, is a
Late moustache us brusquely
And some later the dolmus slowed at a crossroads lit by a single lightbulb
Swung through a U-turn and stopped in a of dust
I the door and got out
But my benefactor no move to follow
The driver my guitar and rucksack at my feet
And away my thanks returned to the boot
Only to reappear a pair of alloy crutches
he leaned against the rear wing of the Mercedes.
He reached into the car and my companion out
Only one leg, the second trouser leg neatly pinned a vacant hip
" Monsieur, si voulez, ca sera un honneur pour nous
Si vous venez avec moi a la maison pour manger ma femme "

When I was 17 my mother, her heart, fulfilled my summer dream
She me the keys to the car
We down to Paris, fuelled with Dexedrine and booze
Got in Antibes by the cops
And fleeced in by the wops
But was kind to us, we were the English dudes
Our had helped them win the war
we all knew what we were fighting for
But now an Englishman abroad is just a US
The bulldog is a poodle snapping round the scoundrel's refuge

"Ma femme", thank God! but not queer
The taxi off leaving us in the dim light of the swinging bulb
No in sight
What the
"Merci monsieur"
"Bon, Venez!"
His faced in pleasure, he set off in front of me
Swinging his leg the crutches with agonising care
Up the dusty side road into the
After half an hour we'd gone maybe half a
When on the right I made out the low profile of a
He called out in Arabic to announce our
And after some scuffling inside a was lit
And the changing angle of light in the wide crack the door
Signalled the of someone within
The door creaked open and there, a biblical looking oil lamp
Stood a squat, moustached woman, smiling up at us
She stood aside to let us in and as she
I saw the reason for her
She carried on her a shocking hump
I nodded and smiled at her in greeting, fighting for control
The between the one-legged man and his monstrous wife
too much for me

Is gentleness too for us
Should gentleness be filed along empathy
We feel for someone else's
Every time a smart bomb its sums and gets it wrong
Someone else's child dies and in defence rise
America, America, please us when we call
You got hip-hop, be-bop, hustle and
You got Atticus
You got Jane
You got of speech
You got great beaches, wildernesses and
let the might, the Christian right, fuck it all up
For you and the rest of the

talked excitedly
She went to take his crutches in of care
He chiding,
We have a
She by her faux pas
Took my things and them gently in the corner
"Du the?"
We sat on meagre cushions in one of the single room
The floor was earth packed hard and by one wall a raised
Some six foot by covered by a simple sheet, the bed
The hunchback busied herself with small copper pots over an open
And brought us tea, hot and
And so to
Flat, bread, + thin
Cooked in an iron over the open hearth
Then and dipped into the soft insides of female sea urchins
My hostess did not eat, I ate her
She would hear of else, I was their guest
And then she behind a curtain
And left the men to sit thimbles full of Arak
Carefully poured a small bottle with a faded label
Soon she reappeared,
Carrying in her arms pride and joy, their child.
I'd never seen a like that
So severe that as one eye out the other disappeared behind its nose

Not in my name, Tony, you war leader you
Terror is still terror, whosoever to frame the rules
History's not by the vanquished or the damned
Now we are Genghis Khan, Borghia, Son of Sam
In 1961 they took this child their home
I wonder became of them
In the that was Lebanon
If I could find now, could I make amends?
How does the end?

And so to bed, me that is, not
Of they slept on the floor behind a curtain
Whilst I lay awake all night on their bed
Then came the and then their quiet stirrings
Careful not to wake the
I in great pretence
And the proffered bowl of water heated up and washed
And sipped my in its tiny cup
And with much "merci-ing" and bowing and shaking of hands
We left the to her chores
And we men made our way back to the
The painful slowness of our progress by the brilliant morning light
The dolmus reappeared
My gave me one crutch and leaning on the other
Shook my and smiled
"Merci, monsieur," I
" De "
" And merci a votre femme, est tres gentille "
up his other crutch
He himself to be folded into the back seat again
"Bon voyage, monsieur," he
And half bowed as the taxi south towards the city
I turned North, my over my shoulder
And the first hot gust of
Quickly the salt tears from my young cheeks.