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 five or six miles to the of the street lamps
And in the curb side dusk
Holding out my
In no great 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
" J'ai pas de "
" Venez! " A soft voice the back seat
The lent wearily 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 pale blue cotton shirt
With one biro in the breast
A clerk maybe, slightly sunken in the
"Venez!" He again, and smiled
"Mais pas de l'argent"
"Oui, Oui, d'accord, Venez!"

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

He beckoned with a small arthritic of his hand
Fingers like a child waving goodbye
The driver put my old Hofner guitar in the 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 alien but correct
Mine halting but eager to
A lift, all, is a lift
moustache left us brusquely
And some miles 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 made no to follow
The driver dumped my guitar and rucksack at my
And waving away my returned to the boot
Only to reappear with a of alloy crutches
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 pinned beneath a hip
" Monsieur, si vous voulez, ca sera un honneur 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 down to Paris, fuelled Dexedrine and booze
Got bust in Antibes by the
And in Naples by the wops
But was kind 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 abroad is a US stooge
The bulldog is a poodle snapping round the scoundrel's refuge

"Ma femme", thank God! Monopod but not
The taxi drove off leaving us in the dim light of the swinging
No building in
What the
"Merci monsieur"
"Bon, Venez!"
His faced creased in pleasure, he set off in of me
his leg between the crutches with agonising care
Up the dusty side road into the
After half an hour we'd gone maybe a mile
When on the right I made out the low of a building
He called out in Arabic to announce our
And after some scuffling inside a was lit
And the changing angle of light in the crack under the door
Signalled the approach of someone
The door creaked and there, holding a biblical looking oil lamp
Stood a squat, woman, stooped smiling up at us
She aside to let us in and as she turned
I saw the for her stoop
She carried on her back a shocking
I nodded and smiled back at her in greeting, fighting for
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 child dies and equities in defence rise
America, America, please us when we call
You got hip-hop, be-bop, hustle and
You got Atticus
You got Russell
You got of speech
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 went to take his in routine of care
He chiding,
We a guest
She embarrassed by her pas
Took my things and laid them in the corner
"Du the?"
We sat on meagre cushions in one corner of the single
The floor was earth packed hard and by one wall a platform
Some six foot by covered by a simple sheet, the bed
The hunchback busied herself with small copper pots an open hearth
And us tea, hot and sweet
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 did not eat, I ate her dinner
She would hear of nothing else, I was their
And then she behind a curtain
And left the men to sit thimbles full of Arak
Carefully poured from a small bottle with a label
Soon she reappeared,
Carrying in her arms their and joy, their child.
I'd never 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
is still terror, whosoever gets to frame the rules
History's not written by the vanquished or the
Now we are Genghis Khan, Borghia, Son of Sam
In 1961 took this child into their home
I wonder what of them
In the cauldron was Lebanon
If I could them 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 dawn and then quiet stirrings
Careful not to the guest
I in great pretence
And took the proffered bowl of water heated up and
And my coffee in its tiny cup
And then with "merci-ing" and bowing and shaking of hands
We the woman to her chores
And we men made our way to the crossroads
The painful slowness of our progress accentuated by the brilliant 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, elle est gentille "
Giving up his crutch
He allowed himself to be folded the back seat again
"Bon voyage, monsieur," he
And half bowed as the taxi south towards the city
I turned North, my guitar over my
And the first hot of wind
Quickly dried the salt tears my young cheeks.