Luyện nghe bài hát Leaving Beirut

So we left Beirut and I
He East to Baghdad and the rest of it
I set out
I walked the five or six miles to the of the street lamps
And hunkered in the curb side
Holding out my
In no hope at the ramshackle procession of home bound traffic
Success!
An ancient Mercedes '
The ubiquitous, Arab, shared taxi up
I turned out my and shrugged at the driver
" pas de l'argent "
" Venez! " A soft voice from the seat
The driver lent wearily across and pushed the back door
I to look 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 clerk maybe, slightly in the seat
"Venez!" He again, and smiled
"Mais pas de l'argent"
"Oui, Oui, d'accord, Venez!"

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

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

When I was 17 my mother, bless her heart, fulfilled my dream
She handed me the to the car
We down to Paris, fuelled with Dexedrine and booze
Got in Antibes by the cops
And in Naples by the wops
But everyone was to us, we were the English dudes
Our dads had helped 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 round the scoundrel's refuge

"Ma femme", thank God! Monopod but not
The taxi off leaving us in the dim light of the swinging bulb
No building in
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 into the darkness
After an hour we'd gone maybe half a mile
When on the right I made out the low of a building
He called out in Arabic to announce our
And some scuffling inside a lamp 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, holding a biblical 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 back a shocking
I nodded and back at her in greeting, fighting for control
The gentleness 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 does its sums and gets it
Someone else's child dies and equities in rise
America, America, hear us when we call
You got hip-hop, be-bop, hustle and
You got Finch
You got Jane
You got of speech
You got great beaches, and malls
Don't let the might, the Christian right, it all up
For you and the rest of the

They excitedly
She went to take his crutches in 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 cushions in one of the single room
The floor was earth packed and by one wall a raised platform
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, unleavened bread, +
Cooked in an iron skillet over the open
Then folded and dipped into the soft insides of sea urchins
My hostess did not eat, I ate her
She would of nothing else, I was their guest
And she retired behind a curtain
And left the men to sit thimbles full of Arak
Carefully poured from a small bottle with a label
she reappeared, radiant
Carrying in her arms their and joy, their child.
I'd never seen a like that
So severe that as one eye looked out the other disappeared its nose

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

And so to bed, me that is, not
Of course they slept on the behind a curtain
Whilst I lay awake all night on earthen bed
Then came the and then their quiet stirrings
not to wake the guest
I in great pretence
And took the bowl of water heated up and washed
And sipped my in its tiny 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 accentuated by the brilliant morning light
The dolmus reappeared
My host me one crutch and leaning on the other
Shook my and smiled
"Merci, monsieur," I
" De "
" And a votre femme, elle est tres gentille "
Giving up his other
He allowed himself to be folded into the seat again
"Bon voyage, monsieur," he
And half as the taxi headed south towards the city
I turned North, my over my shoulder
And the first hot gust of
dried the salt tears from my young cheeks.