Luyện nghe bài hát Leaving Beirut

So we Beirut Willa and I
He headed East to Baghdad and the of it
I set out
I walked the five or six miles to the last of the street
And hunkered in the curb dusk
out my thumb
In no great hope at the ramshackle procession of home bound
Success!
An ancient 'dolmus '
The ubiquitous, Arab, shared taxi up
I turned out my pockets and at the driver
" J'ai pas de "
" Venez! " A voice from the back seat
The driver lent wearily across and pushed open the 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 sleeved pale cotton shirt
With one biro in the pocket
A maybe, slightly sunken in the seat
"Venez!" He again, and smiled
"Mais pas de l'argent"
"Oui, Oui, d'accord, Venez!"

Are the people that we should bomb
Are we so sure they mean us
Is this our pleasure, or crime
Is this a mountain that we want to climb
The road is hard, and long
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 a small arthritic motion of his hand
Fingers like a child waving goodbye
The driver put my old Hofner guitar in the 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 strangers, his French alien but correct
Mine halting but eager to
A lift, after all, is a
moustache left us brusquely
And miles later the dolmus slowed at a crossroads lit by a single lightbulb
Swung through a U-turn and stopped in a of dust
I opened the and got out
But my benefactor no move to follow
The driver dumped my and rucksack at my feet
And waving away my thanks returned to the
Only to reappear with a pair of alloy
Which he leaned against the wing of the Mercedes.
He reached the car and lifted my companion out
Only one leg, the second trouser leg neatly beneath a vacant hip
" Monsieur, si vous voulez, ca sera un honneur pour
Si vous avec moi a la maison pour manger avec ma femme "

I was 17 my mother, bless her heart, fulfilled my summer dream
She me the keys 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 kind to us, we were the English
Our dads had helped win the war
we all knew what we were fighting for
But now an Englishman is just a US stooge
The bulldog is a snapping round the scoundrel's last refuge

"Ma femme", thank God! but not queer
The taxi drove off us in the dim light of the swinging bulb
No building in
the hell
"Merci monsieur"
"Bon, Venez!"
His creased 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 of a building
He called out in to announce our arrival
And after some inside a lamp was lit
And the changing of light in the wide crack under 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 to let us in and as she turned
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 gentleness the one-legged man and his monstrous wife
too much for me

Is too much for us
gentleness be filed along with empathy
We feel for someone else's
Every time a bomb does its sums and gets it wrong
Someone else's child dies and in defence rise
America, America, hear us when we call
You got hip-hop, be-bop, hustle and
You got Atticus
You got Russell
You got freedom of
You got great beaches, and malls
Don't let the might, the 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 laid them in the corner
"Du the?"
We sat on meagre cushions in one corner of the room
The floor was earth packed hard and by one wall a raised
Some six foot by four by a simple sheet, the bed
The hunchback busied herself with copper pots over an open hearth
And us tea, hot and sweet
And so to
Flat, unleavened bread, +
Cooked in an iron over the open hearth
Then folded and dipped into the soft insides of sea urchins
My did not eat, I ate her dinner
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 from a small bottle with a faded label
she reappeared, radiant
Carrying in her arms their and joy, their child.
I'd seen a squint like that
So severe as one eye looked 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 written by the vanquished or the
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 find them now, could I make
How the story end?

And so to bed, me that is, not
Of course they slept on the floor behind a
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 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 woman to her
And we men made our way back to the
The painful slowness of our progress accentuated by the brilliant morning
The duly reappeared
My gave me one crutch and leaning on the other
Shook my hand and
"Merci, monsieur," I
" De "
" And a votre femme, elle est tres 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 my shoulder
And the hot gust of wind
Quickly dried the salt from my young cheeks.