ON THE OUTSKIRTS AGAIN
©Trev Teasdel, Coventry March 1969


I’ve travelled down the country far
I was a motor car.
Rushing speeding, my oil was bleeding
My tyres had worn away.
Arriving at the shipping docks
I found I had no socks.
I looked around to see the time
but they hadn’t any clocks.


I spied upon a young female
Who looked at me so tenderly
I felt so cold and frail.
She offered me a cup of tea
Then wouldn’t let me be.
I gave her all I had to give
Just so that I could live.


I crept upon a sailing ship
For to get my kip.
We sailed away, along the sea
Just where alone i could be.
The sea was calm, i did no harm
I was happy to be free.


Ten hours later, an alligator
rushed upon the deck
I couldn’t fight, I was a sight
A trembling nervous wreck.
Through narrow pipes of food hole types
I flowed unwillingly.


Into a vast and gloomy room
I felt so all alone.
I looked around, up and down
but couldn’t find a phone.
I prayed aloud, within my shroud
This shouldn’t be allowed.


Through narrow pipes of food hole types
I sailed like a kite
There upon, I saw a tongue
I knew I wasn’t wrong.
Pass alerted teeth I fell
like the arrows of William Tell.


Upon the land I saw a hand
pointing to a band
Who learned to play the song the way
it was really meant to be.


I’m on the outskirts again.
I’m on the outskirts again.

WITHOUT THOSE WITHIN
©Trev Teasdel, Coventry May 1969.


The bright light is dimly lit
and barely burns deep within the shadows
of the tomb-gloom cellars of my mind.
Through the dusty, webbed, barred and unwelcoming
windows shoot,
prancing, leaping, gaily reaping images of
luminous suns with tons and tons of fun
in velvet sacks, containing stacks and stacks of everything,
from dolly birds to hors-d’œuvres and jovial words.
But here I stand with mumbles and grumbles,
stumbling and fumbling.
The mind tumbles and crumbles
the cellars knocking, mocking, constantly rocking,
senses reeling, void of feeling, voices squealing.
Rat chase rat in a tat race vat.


Through the keyhole’s narrow tunnel,
tapering like a paraffin funnel
falls bright and brighter lights cascading,
emitting chills, positively scintillating.
Drink unceasingly descending into glasses, served to asses,
getting fat and fatter.
Music blares through speakers,
amplifying, electrifying,
creating great sensations.


My trampled flat soul, slid under the cellar door
like a seawashed sandy shore.


Silhouetted on the wall
an image, so black and so small,
in vain it tires to crawl up the wall.
I watch it, I watch it fall.
I hear it, I hear it call.
I see it squat in a human knot.
My shadow flat soul withdrawing,
unable to communicate,
prisoned within me.


Hands that having reached out and clutched the brittle bones
of society,
were burnt and the dust of this society blows into my eyes,
obscuring my view.
I, lost, in this vast incomprehensible world,
am snared in the quicksand of my own confusion.
Yet back into the world I go,
clutching my transistor radio.

YELLOW BALLOON
©Trev Teasdel, Coventry, November 1969


Chorus
See the Yellow Balloon
sailing in the sky
See it rise, see it fall
over blue shimmering lakes.
Wish I was free like that Yellow balloon
Wish I was free like that Yellow balloon
Wish I was free like that Yellow balloon.


Taking deep breaths in the vestal clear air
and to bathe in the sunshine where
the rays have no obstruction at all.
Oh I wish I was free like that Yellow balloon


Heavy rain, stabbing pain
It falls upon the ground
Tall grass, field rats
slug worms, earth worms
I hide inside the milk churns of my mind.


Tractor wheels ploughing fields
Balloon is out of tune.
Thick mud, deep puddles.
Too many minds are anxious muddles.


Wish I were free
like the yellow balloon.
And the sun shone all of the time.
I’d sit upon the steeple spires
High above the city fires,
high above the mist.


You toil everyday to earn your pay
just to stay alive.
While commercial magnets rob you
and politicians stick you in their human zoo.
Wish I was free like that yellow balloon.

ALESHA
©Trev Teasdel, Coventry March 1969


I count everyday of every minute you’re away,
I kneel on the floor and my tongue starts to pray.
Bring my love safely
Bring my love hastily
Bring my love back
I crave her love.


Roses may bloom but the fade with the season
A candle may burn till the wick runs out.
But our love’s not the same
to part there’s no reason.


I count everyday of every minute you’re away
Blow the days fast
Blow the days past
Floating sadly in joyful sorrow
Yearning madly for our tomorrow.


With heavenly eyes
She tenderly lies.
Face like the sun
emitting her rays.
I’m cast in a trance
I’m lost in a daze.


Time is a wall
I can’t penetrate
It’s spears thrust me down
and insist that I wait.
Patience is slow in nesting in me
A mountain of love is resting in me.

CITY – SMOKESTACKED SERANADE
©Trev Teasdel, Coventry August 1974


O City…
Why does inspiration no longer tremble in your veins?
You have begat a desert of sundried grains.


O City…
Like a clenched fist in the garden of the Lord.
The flowers bent and bowed where vapours
out of you poured.


I stand here stranded in your blackened pit
Beaten down by your fast and furious whip.


O city…
Your dark eyes glisten and seduce me to your woos
You dark disgusting lady, you got me trembling in your shoes.
Time cracks his whip and breathes life into the fools
Mother nature’s raped by man’s pneumatic tools
People just sit around and watch….

THIS SPARK OF NEW LOVE
©Trev Teasdel, Coventry February 1973


If we could keep this spark of new love
Throughout the years to come
How wonderful our lives would be
How blessed we would be.


She takes you to her room – you’re overjoyed
That she has taken notice of you,
You’ve been lonely a long long long time.
Nothing’s too much trouble – you’re very much in love.
Her first kiss brings tears of a long for dream come true.
She seats you down, the coffee’s on, she treats you tenderly thoughtfully
You’re intoxicated with love’s tender tranquillity.
You’re heart is filled with joy.
You have a lot to talk about, there’s a fluent intercourse
of words and time enough for tenderness.


Laughter’s overflowing but Champaign isn’t needed
And nothing’s too much trouble. Interest is stimulated.
If this feeling could last every time that I were to meet you,
How wonderful our lives could be, how blessed we would be.
To cast off careworn coats of loneliness.
To save each other from the drowning seas we’re in.
If we could keep this spark of new love
throughout the years to come
How wonderful our lives would be
How blessed we would be.

The Spark of a New Love from Trev Teasdel on Vimeo.

HERE I AM – (THE DREAM)
©Trev Teasdel Coventry November 1970


Here I am
Here I am
A happy happy man
See the river flow like her gentle touch
along my brow
as it ripples like a kiss,
I feel free
i feel happy
Her hair like a poem flows
If there is a heaven, this is it.
I think she knows.
Don’t take me from these hills
Don’t take me from these hills.
Leave me, let the sea caress my weary feet.
Let the laughing sun  melt away
all my frustration.
Sister nature’s such a lovely looking woman
when she undresses.
And as I cross her virgin pastures
she lures me all the more.
Want to be be where the multicoloured reptiles
are gliding free and the rabbits are the
rulers of the land.
As I sail my sun boat cross the mineral watered lake.
It heals my worried mind.
like a yoyo I must unwind,
must unwind.
No more, no more,
shall the shallow water sharks snap at me.
I am all i see
and all I see is me.
I know
and all i see is free
and I am free.
As I lay my head upon mother nature’s breast,
I realise that I’m twice my size, I am the universe.

LOWESTOFT LADY
©Trev Teasdel Coventry May 1971


Lowestoft Lady sits on the wall by the flowers
Wouldn’t believe she’s 80 plus.
A notice saying ‘ Don’t pick the flowers‘
but she doesn’t care –
bit of a lad my lady.


Lowestoft Lady, Lowestoft Lady
Lowestoft Lady, Lowestoft Lady
Lowestoft Lady, Lowestoft Lady
I see you, do you see me?


Lives in home for old people
Beside the sea
Watches the boats leave the harbour.
Watching the ships on the horizon
Walks past the fishbasket harbour,
Down cobblestone, cafe lined, hotel kissed
picture postcard street.
Breathes in the salted, seasprayed, fish drenched air..
Knows not what she’s doing doing or why that she’s doing it
but she does it cos she’s a Lowestoft lady
Living her old age like a delinquent teenager.


Lowestoft lady speaks to the wind perched on her shoulders
Reminisces of tramcars, beadles and sweeps,
and equestrian gentlemen who galloped the streets
of top hats and tails and paupers and places
that no longer dance in the evolutionary whip.

THE COURT OF COUNT JULIUS
DE OPULENT.
©Trev Teasdel Coventry  Early 1973


I have traveled so far
I have traveled so far
I’m weary and footsore
I’m weary and footsore.


Begging water and food
Begging water and food
All i have is what I am
I’m a minstrel of repute
From the Court of Count Julius De Opulent.


I’ve served my master well
I’ve served my master well
But my dreams led me on
To bring tidings of happiness
Through my music and laughter.


A lady I’d for to court
A lady I’d like for to court.
For a minstrel’s life can be lonely.
Chasing a star-dappled dream
And take her back with me
to the Court of Count Julius De Opulent.


If a wizard’s wand had i
with powers so very keen
For some I have the wizard’s gleam
Ah but my friends it is but a dream
from the Court of  Count Julius De Opulent.

EVENING WITH FRIENDS
(HAVING FUN)
©Trev Teasdel Middlesbrough February 1981


When affairs wear me down
and I’m wound up in the world.
When progress is slow and tedium high
When day is done and the night begun
I like to spend the evening with friends
having fun.


When days are dark and times are hard
When news and views are bleak
When I’m all spent and owning rent
Sleeping rough in a borrowed tent.
I love to spend the evening with friends
having fun.


Making music is a warm front room
Making tea and telling tales
Having laughs that shake the walls
A smile can really tip the scales.


When hair is greasy and clothes all dirty
and you haven’t time for a cup of tea
When mind grows blank and nerves are frayed
and so much is left undone.
I like to spend the evening with friends
having fun
I like to spend the evening with friends
having fun.