Luyện nghe bài hát Leaving Beirut

So we left Beirut and I
He headed East to and the rest of it
I set out
I walked the or six miles to the last of the street lamps
And hunkered in the curb side
Holding out my
In no great hope at the ramshackle of home bound traffic
Success!
An ancient Mercedes '
The ubiquitous, Arab, shared taxi up
I out my pockets and shrugged at the driver
" pas de l'argent "
" Venez! " A voice from the back seat
The driver wearily across and pushed open the back door
I stooped to inside 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 pale blue cotton shirt
one biro in the breast pocket
A maybe, slightly sunken in the seat
"Venez!" He said again, and
"Mais pas de l'argent"
"Oui, Oui, d'accord, Venez!"

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

He beckoned with a small arthritic motion of his
Fingers together a child waving goodbye
The driver put my old Hofner guitar in the boot my rucksack
And off we
" Vous Francais, monsieur? "
" Non, "
" Ah! "
" que vous parlais Anglais, Monsieur? "
"Non, je regrette"
And so on
In small talk between strangers, his French but correct
Mine halting but to please
A lift, after all, is a
Late moustache left us
And some miles later the dolmus slowed at a lit by a single lightbulb
Swung through a and stopped in a cloud of dust
I opened the and got out
But my made no move to follow
The dumped my guitar and rucksack at my feet
And waving my thanks returned to the boot
Only to reappear with a of alloy crutches
Which he against the rear wing of the Mercedes.
He reached into the car and my companion out
one leg, the second trouser leg neatly pinned beneath a vacant hip
" Monsieur, si vous voulez, ca un honneur pour nous
Si vous venez moi a la maison pour manger avec ma femme "

When I was 17 my mother, bless her heart, fulfilled my summer
She me the keys to the car
We motored to Paris, fuelled with Dexedrine and booze
Got bust in Antibes by the
And fleeced in by the wops
But was kind to us, we were the English dudes
Our dads had them win the war
When we all knew we were fighting for
But now an Englishman abroad is a US stooge
The bulldog is a poodle round 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 in sight
What the
"Merci monsieur"
"Bon, Venez!"
His creased in pleasure, he set off in front of me
Swinging his leg between the crutches agonising care
Up the dusty side road the darkness
After half an hour we'd gone half a mile
When on the right I made out the low profile of a
He called out in Arabic to announce our
And after some scuffling a lamp was lit
And the changing angle of light in the wide under the door
Signalled the approach of within
The door creaked open and there, holding a biblical looking oil
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 back at her in greeting, fighting for control
The between the one-legged man and his monstrous wife
Almost too for me

Is too much for us
Should gentleness be along with empathy
We feel for else's child
Every a smart bomb does its sums and gets it wrong
else's child dies and equities in defence rise
America, America, please hear us we call
You got hip-hop, be-bop, and bustle
You got Finch
You got Russell
You got freedom of
You got great beaches, wildernesses and
let the might, the Christian right, fuck it all up
For you and the of the world

talked excitedly
She to take his crutches in routine of care
He chiding,
We have a
She by her faux pas
my things and laid them gently in the corner
"Du the?"
We sat on meagre in one corner of the single room
The floor was earth packed and by one wall a raised platform
Some six foot by four covered by a sheet, the bed
The busied herself with small copper pots over an open hearth
And brought us tea, hot and
And so to
Flat, unleavened bread, +
Cooked in an skillet over the open hearth
folded and dipped into the soft insides of female sea urchins
My hostess did not eat, I ate her
She would of nothing else, I was their guest
And then she behind a curtain
And left the men to sit thimbles full of Arak
Carefully poured from a small with a faded label
she reappeared, radiant
Carrying in her their pride and joy, their child.
I'd never a squint like that
So severe that as one eye looked out the other behind its nose

Not in my name, Tony, you great war you
Terror is still terror, gets to frame the rules
not written by the vanquished or the damned
Now we are Khan, Lucretia Borghia, Son of Sam
In 1961 they took this child their home
I what became of them
In the cauldron that was
If I could find them now, could I amends?
How does the end?

And so to bed, me is, not them
Of course they on the floor behind a curtain
Whilst I lay awake all night on their bed
Then the dawn and then their quiet stirrings
not to wake the guest
I yawned in great
And took the proffered bowl of water heated up and
And sipped my in its tiny cup
And then with much "merci-ing" and and shaking of hands
We the woman to her chores
And we men made our way back to the
The slowness of our progress accentuated by the brilliant morning light
The dolmus duly
My gave me one crutch and leaning on the other
Shook my and smiled
"Merci, monsieur," I
" De "
" And merci a votre femme, elle est gentille "
Giving up his crutch
He allowed to be folded into the back seat again
"Bon voyage, monsieur," he
And bowed as the taxi headed south towards the city
I turned North, my guitar over my
And the hot gust of wind
Quickly dried the salt from my young cheeks.