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 the five or six miles to the last of the street lamps
And hunkered in the side dusk
out my thumb
In no great hope at the ramshackle procession of home bound
Success!
An ancient 'dolmus '
The ubiquitous, Arab, shared drew up
I turned out my and shrugged at the driver
" pas de l'argent "
" Venez! " A voice from the back seat
The driver lent wearily across and pushed 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 biro in the 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 should
Are we so sure they mean us
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 never turn you his door
Oh George! Oh George!
That Texas education must have fucked you up when you very small

He beckoned a small arthritic motion of his hand
together like a child waving goodbye
The driver put my old Hofner in the boot with my rucksack
And off we
" etes Francais, monsieur? "
" Non, "
" Ah! "
" que vous parlais Anglais, Monsieur? "
"Non, je regrette"
And so on
In talk between strangers, his French alien but correct
Mine halting but to please
A lift, after all, is a
Late moustache left us
And some later the dolmus slowed at a crossroads lit by a single lightbulb
Swung through a U-turn and stopped in a cloud of
I opened the and got out
But my benefactor no move 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
Only one leg, the second trouser leg pinned beneath a vacant 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, bless her heart, fulfilled my summer
She me the keys to the car
We motored down to Paris, fuelled Dexedrine and booze
Got in Antibes by the cops
And in Naples by the wops
But everyone was kind to us, we were the dudes
Our dads had helped win the war
When we all knew what we fighting for
But now an Englishman abroad is a US stooge
The is a poodle snapping round the scoundrel's last refuge

"Ma femme", thank God! Monopod but not
The taxi off leaving us in the dim light of the swinging bulb
No building in
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 we'd gone maybe half a mile
When on the I made out the low profile of a building
He out in Arabic to announce our arrival
And after scuffling inside a lamp was lit
And the changing angle of in the wide crack under the door
Signalled the approach of within
The door open and there, holding a biblical looking oil lamp
a squat, moustached woman, stooped smiling up at us
She stood aside to let us in and as she
I saw the for her stoop
She on her back a shocking hump
I nodded and smiled back at her in greeting, for control
The gentleness between the one-legged man and his monstrous
Almost too for me

Is too much for us
gentleness be filed along with empathy
We feel for else's child
Every time a smart does its sums and gets it wrong
Someone else's child dies and in defence rise
America, America, please hear us we call
You got hip-hop, be-bop, hustle and
You got Atticus
You got Jane
You got freedom of
You got great beaches, and malls
Don't let the might, the Christian right, it all up
For you and the of the world

They 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 gently in the
"Du the?"
We sat on meagre in one corner of the single room
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 brought us tea, hot and
And so to
Flat, unleavened bread, +
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 she retired behind a curtain
And left the men to sit thimbles full of Arak
Carefully poured a small bottle with a faded label
Soon she reappeared,
Carrying in her their pride and joy, their child.
I'd never seen a squint that
So that as one eye looked out the other disappeared behind its nose

Not in my name, Tony, you great war you
is still terror, whosoever 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 into their
I wonder what of them
In the that was Lebanon
If I could find them now, could I make
How the story end?

And so to bed, me that is, not
Of course they on the floor behind a curtain
Whilst I lay all night on their earthen bed
Then came the dawn and then their stirrings
not to wake the guest
I yawned in great
And took the bowl of water heated up and washed
And sipped my coffee in its cup
And then with much "merci-ing" and and shaking of hands
We left the woman to her
And we men made our way to the crossroads
The painful of our progress accentuated by the brilliant morning light
The dolmus reappeared
My host gave me one crutch and leaning on the
Shook my hand and
"Merci, monsieur," I
" De "
" And merci a femme, elle est tres gentille "
Giving up his other
He allowed to be folded into the back seat 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 dried the salt tears from my cheeks.