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 last of the street
And hunkered in the curb dusk
Holding out my
In no great hope at the ramshackle of home bound traffic
Success!
An Mercedes 'dolmus '
The ubiquitous, Arab, shared taxi up
I turned out my and shrugged at the driver
" J'ai pas de "
" Venez! " A voice from the back seat
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, five-ish, bald, sallow, in a short sleeved pale blue cotton shirt
With one in the breast pocket
A clerk maybe, sunken in the seat
"Venez!" He said again, and
"Mais pas de l'argent"
"Oui, Oui, d'accord, Venez!"

Are the people that we should bomb
Are we so they mean us harm
Is our pleasure, punishment 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 with a small arthritic motion of his hand
Fingers together like a waving goodbye
The put my old Hofner guitar in the boot with my rucksack
And off we
" etes Francais, monsieur? "
" Non, "
" Ah! "
" Est-ce que parlais Anglais, Monsieur? "
"Non, je regrette"
And so on
In small talk between strangers, his French alien but
Mine halting but to please
A lift, after all, is a
Late left us brusquely
And some miles later the dolmus at a crossroads lit by a single lightbulb
Swung through a and stopped in a cloud of dust
I the door and got out
But my made no move to follow
The driver dumped my guitar and rucksack at my
And waving away my returned to the boot
Only to reappear a pair of alloy crutches
Which he leaned the rear wing of the Mercedes.
He reached the car and lifted my companion out
Only one leg, the second trouser leg pinned beneath a vacant hip
" Monsieur, si vous voulez, ca un honneur pour nous
Si vous venez avec moi a la maison pour 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, with Dexedrine and booze
Got bust in by the cops
And fleeced in 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 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 bulb
No in sight
What the
"Merci monsieur"
"Bon, Venez!"
His creased in pleasure, he set off in front of me
Swinging his leg between the crutches with care
Up the side road into the darkness
After half an hour we'd gone maybe a mile
When on the right I made out the low profile of a
He called out in Arabic to announce our
And after some inside a lamp was lit
And the changing angle of light in the wide under the door
the approach of someone within
The door creaked open and there, holding a biblical looking oil
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 smiled 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 be filed along with empathy
We feel for someone else's
Every a smart bomb does its sums and gets it wrong
Someone else's child dies and equities in defence
America, America, please hear us when we
You got hip-hop, be-bop, and bustle
You got Finch
You got Russell
You got freedom of
You got great beaches, wildernesses and
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 in routine of care
He chiding,
We a guest
She by her faux pas
Took my things and laid them gently in the
"Du the?"
We sat on meagre in one corner of the single room
The was earth packed hard and by one wall a raised platform
six foot by four covered by a simple sheet, the bed
The hunchback busied herself small copper pots over an open hearth
And brought us tea, hot and
And so to
Flat, unleavened bread, +
Cooked in an iron skillet over the open
Then and dipped 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 a curtain
And left the men to sit drinking thimbles of Arak
Carefully poured from a small with a faded 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
Terror is still terror, gets to frame the rules
History's not written by the or the damned
Now we are Genghis Khan, Borghia, Son of Sam
In 1961 they took this child their home
I wonder what became of
In the cauldron was Lebanon
If I could find now, could I make amends?
How does the story

And so to bed, me that is, not
Of they slept on the floor behind a curtain
Whilst I lay awake all on their earthen bed
Then came the dawn and then their quiet
Careful not to wake the
I in great pretence
And took the proffered of water heated up and washed
And my coffee in its tiny cup
And then with much "merci-ing" and bowing and shaking of
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 morning
The dolmus reappeared
My host gave me one crutch and on the other
my hand and smiled
"Merci, monsieur," I
" De "
" And merci a votre femme, elle est gentille "
up his other crutch
He allowed himself to be folded into the seat again
"Bon voyage, monsieur," he
And half bowed as the taxi headed south towards the
I turned North, my guitar my shoulder
And the first hot of wind
Quickly the salt tears from my young cheeks.