Luyện nghe bài hát Leaving Beirut

So we left Willa and I
He headed to Baghdad and the rest of it
I set out
I walked the or six miles to the last of the street lamps
And hunkered in the curb side
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 out my pockets and shrugged at the driver
" pas de l'argent "
" Venez! " A soft voice the back seat
The driver lent wearily across and pushed open the door
I stooped to look 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 sleeved pale 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 these the that we should bomb
Are we so sure they mean us
Is this our pleasure, punishment or
Is this a that we really want to climb
The road is hard, hard and
Put that two by four
This man would never you from his door
Oh George! Oh George!
That Texas must have fucked you up when you were very small

He with a small arthritic motion of his hand
Fingers together a child waving goodbye
The driver put my old Hofner in the boot with my rucksack
And off we
" Vous etes Francais, "
" Non, "
" Ah! "
" Est-ce que parlais Anglais, Monsieur? "
"Non, je regrette"
And so on
In small talk strangers, his French alien but correct
Mine halting but to please
A lift, all, is a lift
Late moustache left us
And some miles later the dolmus slowed at a lit by a single lightbulb
Swung through a U-turn and stopped in a 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 away my returned to the boot
Only to reappear with a of alloy crutches
Which he leaned against the wing of the Mercedes.
He reached into the car and my companion out
Only one leg, the second trouser leg pinned beneath a vacant hip
" Monsieur, si voulez, ca sera un honneur pour nous
Si venez avec 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 down to Paris, fuelled with Dexedrine and
Got bust in Antibes by the
And in Naples by the wops
But everyone was kind to us, we the English dudes
Our had helped them win the war
we all knew what we were fighting for
But now an Englishman abroad is just a US
The bulldog is a poodle snapping round the scoundrel's last

"Ma femme", God! Monopod but not queer
The taxi drove off leaving us in the dim light of the swinging
No in sight
the hell
"Merci monsieur"
"Bon, Venez!"
His faced in pleasure, he set off in front of me
Swinging his leg between the crutches with agonising
Up the side road into the darkness
After half an hour we'd gone half a mile
on the right I made out the low profile of a building
He called out in to announce our arrival
And after some scuffling a lamp was lit
And the changing angle of light in the wide crack the door
Signalled the approach of 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 for her stoop
She carried on her a shocking hump
I nodded and smiled back at her in greeting, for control
The gentleness between the one-legged man and his monstrous
too much for me

Is too much for us
gentleness be filed along with empathy
We for someone else's child
Every time a smart bomb does its and gets it wrong
Someone else's dies and equities in defence rise
America, America, please hear us when we
You got hip-hop, be-bop, hustle and
You got Finch
You got Jane
You got of speech
You got great beaches, and malls
let the might, the Christian right, fuck it all up
For you and the of the world

talked excitedly
She went to his crutches in routine of care
He chiding,
We a guest
She by her faux pas
Took my things and laid 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 with small copper pots over an open hearth
And us tea, hot and sweet
And so to
Flat, bread, + thin
Cooked in an iron skillet over the hearth
Then folded and dipped into the soft of female sea urchins
My did not eat, I ate her dinner
She hear of nothing else, I was their guest
And then she retired behind a
And left the men to sit drinking thimbles full of
Carefully poured from a bottle with a faded label
she reappeared, radiant
Carrying in her arms their pride and joy, child.
I'd never a squint 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 terror, whosoever gets to frame the rules
not written by the vanquished or the damned
Now we are Khan, Lucretia Borghia, Son of Sam
In they took this child into their home
I wonder became of them
In the cauldron that was
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 their quiet stirrings
Careful not to the guest
I yawned in great
And took the proffered bowl of heated up and washed
And sipped my in its tiny cup
And then much "merci-ing" and bowing and shaking of hands
We the woman to her chores
And we men made our way to the crossroads
The painful of our progress accentuated by the brilliant morning light
The dolmus duly
My gave me one crutch and leaning on the other
Shook my and smiled
"Merci, monsieur," I
" De "
" And merci a votre femme, est tres 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 towards the city
I turned North, my over my shoulder
And the first hot of wind
Quickly the salt tears from my young cheeks.