So we Beirut Willa and I He headed East to and the rest of it I set out I walked the five or six miles to the last of the lamps And in the curb side dusk out my thumb In no great hope at the ramshackle procession of bound traffic Success! An ancient Mercedes ' The ubiquitous, Arab, taxi drew up I turned out my pockets and shrugged at the " pas de l'argent " " Venez! " A soft voice from the back The driver lent wearily and pushed open 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 sleeved pale blue cotton shirt With one in the breast pocket A clerk maybe, sunken in the seat "Venez!" He again, and smiled "Mais pas de l'argent" "Oui, Oui, d'accord, Venez!"
Are these the people that we bomb Are we so sure they us harm Is our pleasure, punishment or crime Is this a mountain that we really want to The is hard, hard and long Put down two by four This man would turn you from his door Oh George! Oh George! That Texas education have fucked you up when you were very small
He beckoned with a small 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 " Vous Francais, monsieur? " " Non, " " Ah! " " Est-ce que parlais Anglais, Monsieur? " "Non, je regrette" And so on In small talk between strangers, his French but correct Mine halting but eager to A lift, after all, is a Late moustache left us And some miles later the dolmus at a crossroads lit by a single lightbulb Swung a U-turn and stopped in a cloud of dust I the door and got out But my benefactor no move to follow The driver dumped my guitar and rucksack at my And waving away my thanks returned to the Only to reappear a pair of alloy crutches Which he against the rear 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 venez avec moi a la maison pour manger avec 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, fuelled Dexedrine and booze Got in Antibes by the cops And fleeced in by the wops But everyone was kind to us, we were the English Our had helped them win the war When we all knew 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 drove off leaving us in the dim light of the swinging bulb No building in the hell "Merci monsieur" "Bon, Venez!" His faced in pleasure, he set off in front of me his leg between the crutches with agonising care Up the dusty side road into the After half an we'd gone maybe half a mile When on the I made out the low profile of a building He called out in to announce our arrival And after some inside a lamp was lit And the changing angle of in the wide crack under the door Signalled the of someone within The door creaked and there, holding a biblical looking oil lamp Stood a squat, moustached woman, stooped up at us She stood to let us in and as she turned I saw the for her stoop She on her back a shocking hump 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 gentleness too for us Should gentleness be along with empathy We for someone else's child Every time a smart bomb does its sums and it wrong Someone child dies and equities in defence rise America, America, hear us when we call You got hip-hop, be-bop, hustle and You got Finch You got Russell You got freedom of You got great beaches, and malls let the might, the Christian right, fuck it all up For you and the of the world
They talked She went to take his in routine of care He chiding, We have a She embarrassed by her pas Took my things and laid gently in the corner "Du the?" We sat on meagre cushions in one of the single room The floor was earth packed hard and by one wall a raised Some six foot by covered by a simple sheet, the bed The hunchback busied herself with small pots over an open hearth And brought us tea, hot and And so to Flat, bread, + thin Cooked in an iron over the open hearth Then folded and into the soft insides of female sea urchins My hostess did not eat, I ate her She would hear of else, I was their guest And then she retired behind a And the men to sit drinking thimbles full of Arak Carefully poured from a small bottle with a faded she reappeared, radiant Carrying in her their pride and joy, their child. I'd seen a squint like that So severe that as one eye looked out the other disappeared behind its
Not in my name, Tony, you great war you Terror is still terror, gets to frame the rules History's not by the vanquished or the damned Now we are Genghis Khan, Borghia, Son of Sam In 1961 they took this child their home I wonder became of them In the cauldron was Lebanon If I find them now, could I make amends? How does the story
And so to bed, me is, not them Of course slept on the floor behind a curtain Whilst I lay all night on their earthen bed Then came the dawn and then their stirrings Careful not to the guest I in great pretence And took the bowl of water heated up and washed And sipped my coffee in its cup And then with "merci-ing" and bowing and shaking of hands We the woman to her chores And we men our way back to the crossroads The painful slowness of our accentuated by the brilliant morning light The dolmus duly 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 " Giving up his crutch He allowed himself to be into the back seat again "Bon voyage, monsieur," he And half as the taxi headed south towards the city I North, my guitar over my shoulder And the first hot of wind Quickly dried the salt tears my young cheeks.