So we left 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 hunkered in the curb dusk Holding out my In no great hope at the ramshackle procession of home traffic Success! An ancient Mercedes ' The ubiquitous, Arab, shared drew up I turned out my pockets and shrugged at the " J'ai pas de " " Venez! " A soft voice from the back The lent wearily across 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 short pale blue cotton shirt one biro 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 these the people that we bomb Are we so sure they us harm Is our pleasure, punishment or crime Is a mountain that we really want to climb 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 must have fucked you up you were very small
He beckoned with a small arthritic of his hand Fingers together like a waving goodbye The driver put my old Hofner in the boot 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 alien but correct halting but eager to please A lift, all, is a lift Late moustache left us And some later the dolmus slowed 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 benefactor made no to follow The driver dumped my guitar and at my feet And waving my thanks returned to the boot Only to with a pair of alloy crutches Which he leaned against the wing of the Mercedes. He reached the car and lifted my companion out one leg, the second trouser leg neatly 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, her heart, fulfilled my summer dream She handed me the to the car We down to Paris, fuelled with Dexedrine and booze Got bust in by the cops And fleeced in by the wops But everyone was kind to us, we the English dudes Our had helped them win the war When we all knew what we fighting for But now an Englishman abroad is a US stooge The bulldog is a poodle round the scoundrel's last refuge
"Ma femme", God! Monopod but not queer The taxi off leaving us in the dim light of the swinging bulb No in sight the hell "Merci monsieur" "Bon, Venez!" His creased in pleasure, he set off in front of me Swinging his leg between the crutches with agonising Up the dusty side into the darkness After an hour we'd gone maybe half a mile When on the right I out the low profile of a building He out in Arabic to announce our arrival And after some scuffling inside a was lit And the changing angle of in the wide crack under the door the approach of someone within The door creaked open and there, holding a biblical looking oil a squat, moustached woman, stooped smiling up at us She aside to let us in and as she turned I saw the reason for her She carried on her a shocking hump I and smiled back at her in greeting, fighting for control The gentleness the one-legged man and his monstrous wife Almost too for me
Is too much for us Should gentleness be filed along empathy We feel for else's child Every time a smart bomb does its sums and gets it Someone child dies and equities in defence rise America, America, please hear us when we You got hip-hop, be-bop, and bustle You got Atticus You got Jane 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 to take his crutches in routine of care He chiding, We a guest She by her faux pas my things and laid them gently in the corner "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 Some six by four covered by a simple sheet, the bed The hunchback busied herself with small copper 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 folded and dipped the soft insides of female sea urchins My did not eat, I ate her dinner She would of nothing else, I was their guest And she retired behind a curtain And left the men to sit drinking thimbles of Arak poured from a small bottle with a faded label Soon she reappeared, Carrying in her arms pride and joy, their child. I'd never seen a squint like So severe that as one eye 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 or the damned Now we are Khan, Lucretia Borghia, Son of Sam In 1961 they this child into their home I what became of them In the cauldron was Lebanon If I could find them now, could I make How does the story
And so to bed, me that is, not Of course they slept on the floor behind a Whilst I lay all night on their earthen bed Then came the dawn and then their quiet Careful not to wake the I yawned in great And the proffered bowl of water heated up and washed And sipped my coffee in its cup And then with much "merci-ing" and bowing and of hands We left the 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 host me one crutch and leaning on the other Shook my hand and "Merci, monsieur," I " De " " And a votre femme, elle est tres gentille " up his other crutch He allowed himself to be folded into the back again "Bon voyage, monsieur," he And half bowed as the taxi headed south towards the I turned North, my over my shoulder And the first hot of wind Quickly the salt tears from my young cheeks.