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 in the curb side dusk
Holding out my
In no great at the ramshackle procession of home bound traffic
Success!
An Mercedes 'dolmus '
The ubiquitous, Arab, taxi drew up
I turned out my pockets and shrugged at the
" J'ai pas de "
" Venez! " A voice from the back seat
The driver lent wearily across and 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
With one in the breast pocket
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 that we should bomb
Are we so sure they mean us
Is this our pleasure, or crime
Is this a mountain we really want to climb
The road is 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 a small arthritic motion of his hand
Fingers together like a child waving
The put my old Hofner guitar in the boot with my rucksack
And off we
" etes Francais, monsieur? "
" Non, "
" Ah! "
" Est-ce que vous parlais Anglais, "
"Non, je regrette"
And so on
In small talk between strangers, his alien but correct
Mine halting but eager to
A lift, after all, is a
Late moustache us brusquely
And some miles later the dolmus slowed at a crossroads lit by a lightbulb
Swung through a U-turn and stopped in a of dust
I the door and got out
But my benefactor made no move to
The dumped my guitar and rucksack at my feet
And waving away my returned to the boot
Only to reappear with a pair of crutches
Which he leaned against the rear of the Mercedes.
He reached into the car and lifted my out
Only one leg, the second trouser leg neatly pinned beneath a 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, her heart, fulfilled my summer dream
She me the keys to the car
We motored to Paris, fuelled with Dexedrine and booze
Got bust in by the cops
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 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 us in the dim light of the swinging bulb
No in sight
What the
"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 the darkness
After half an hour we'd gone maybe a mile
When on the right I out the low profile of a building
He called out in Arabic to our arrival
And after some 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 and there, holding a biblical looking oil lamp
Stood a squat, woman, stooped smiling up at us
She stood to let us in and as she turned
I saw the reason for her
She carried on her back a hump
I nodded and back at her in greeting, fighting for control
The between the one-legged man and his monstrous wife
too much for me

Is gentleness too for us
Should gentleness be filed along with
We for someone else's child
Every time a smart bomb does its 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, and bustle
You got Finch
You got Jane
You got of speech
You got beaches, wildernesses 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 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 raised
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, +
in an iron skillet over the open hearth
Then and dipped into the soft insides of female sea urchins
My hostess did not eat, I ate her
She hear 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 bottle with a faded
Soon she reappeared,
in her arms their pride 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, whosoever gets to the rules
History's not written by the vanquished or the
Now we are Khan, Lucretia Borghia, Son of Sam
In 1961 they took this into their home
I wonder what became of
In the cauldron that was
If I could find them now, I make amends?
How does the end?

And so to bed, me that is, not
Of course they on the floor behind a curtain
I lay awake all night on their earthen bed
Then came the dawn and then their quiet
Careful not to wake the
I yawned in pretence
And took the proffered of water heated up and washed
And my coffee in its tiny cup
And then with "merci-ing" and bowing and shaking of hands
We left the to her chores
And we men made our way back to the
The painful slowness of our progress accentuated by the brilliant morning
The dolmus reappeared
My host me one crutch and leaning on the other
Shook my and smiled
"Merci, monsieur," I
" De "
" And merci a femme, elle est tres gentille "
up his other 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 over my shoulder
And the first hot of wind
Quickly the salt tears from my young cheeks.