Luyện nghe bài hát Leaving Beirut

So we left Beirut and I
He headed East to Baghdad and the of it
I set out
I walked the five or six to the last of the street lamps
And hunkered in the curb dusk
out my thumb
In no hope at the ramshackle procession of home bound traffic
Success!
An ancient 'dolmus '
The ubiquitous, Arab, shared drew up
I turned out my and shrugged at the driver
" pas de l'argent "
" Venez! " A soft voice from the back
The driver lent across and pushed open the back 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, slightly sunken in the
"Venez!" He said again, and
"Mais pas de l'argent"
"Oui, Oui, d'accord, Venez!"

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

He beckoned a small arthritic motion of his hand
Fingers together a child waving goodbye
The driver put my old Hofner guitar in the boot my rucksack
And off we
" etes Francais, monsieur? "
" Non, "
" Ah! "
" Est-ce que vous parlais Anglais, "
"Non, je regrette"
And so on
In talk between strangers, his French alien but correct
halting but eager to please
A lift, all, is a lift
Late left us brusquely
And some miles later the dolmus 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 dumped my guitar and rucksack at my feet
And waving away my returned to the boot
Only to reappear with a of alloy crutches
Which he leaned against the rear of the Mercedes.
He reached into the car and my companion out
Only one leg, the second trouser leg neatly beneath a vacant hip
" Monsieur, si vous voulez, ca un honneur pour nous
Si vous venez avec moi a la maison pour manger ma femme "

When I was 17 my mother, bless her heart, fulfilled my summer
She handed me the to the car
We motored down to Paris, with Dexedrine and booze
Got bust in Antibes by the
And in Naples by the wops
But everyone was to us, we were the English dudes
Our had helped them win the war
When we all what we were fighting for
But now an Englishman is just a US stooge
The bulldog is a poodle snapping the scoundrel's last refuge

"Ma femme", thank God! but not queer
The taxi drove off leaving us in the dim light of the swinging
No building in
the hell
"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 gone maybe half a mile
When on the right I out the low profile of a building
He called out in Arabic to our arrival
And some scuffling inside a lamp was lit
And the changing angle of light in the wide under the door
Signalled the of someone within
The door creaked open and there, holding a biblical looking oil
a squat, moustached woman, stooped smiling up at us
She stood to let us in and as she turned
I saw the reason for her
She carried on her back a hump
I and smiled back at her in greeting, fighting for control
The gentleness between the one-legged man and his monstrous
too much for me

Is too much for us
Should gentleness be filed along with
We feel for someone else's
Every time a smart bomb does its sums and it wrong
Someone else's child and equities in defence rise
America, America, hear us when we call
You got hip-hop, be-bop, and bustle
You got Atticus
You got Jane
You got freedom of
You got beaches, wildernesses and malls
let the might, the Christian right, fuck it all up
For you and the rest of the

They excitedly
She to take his crutches in routine of care
He chiding,
We have a
She embarrassed by her pas
my things and laid them gently in the corner
"Du the?"
We sat on meagre cushions in one corner of the single
The was earth packed hard and by one wall a raised platform
Some six foot by four covered by a sheet, the bed
The hunchback busied herself with small copper over an open hearth
And us tea, hot and sweet
And so to
Flat, unleavened bread, +
in an iron skillet over the open hearth
Then folded and dipped into the soft insides of female sea
My hostess did not eat, I ate her
She hear of nothing else, I was their guest
And she retired behind a curtain
And left the men to sit drinking thimbles full of
Carefully poured a small bottle with a faded label
Soon she reappeared,
Carrying in her arms their pride and joy, child.
I'd never seen a like that
So severe that as one eye looked out the disappeared behind its nose

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

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