Life Goes On

LIFE GOES ON
©Trev Teasdel  Coventry  May 79


On the cold hearted steps
of a city’s slum street flats
Where poverty harden’s the hearts
of the most gentle caring souls.
Where problems play cat and mouse
with a persons peace of mind,
stood a young girl treated so
heartlessly unkind.


Chorus
And now she knows that lovers lie
and when they leave you, you gotta try
to carry on..
Life goes on and on and on.


She wandered along the street
her steps the cautious kind.
As if afraid the concrete
might be quicksand.
Past lofty tenement houses
bombed and battered in their time,

skin well thickened from
the stress and trial of life.
Could see her tender heart was torn
by love’s abandonment.


Her sighs told the street
that love had been unkind
She had given everything
she had been robbed blind.
Her heart was in a tangle
only one man could untie
for whatever that man had done
her heart was his it is no lie.

Life Goes On by Trev Teasdel

Happy Birthday (You / Me)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY (You /Me)
©Trev Teasdel Coventry Feb 78


Chorus
Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday
Happy Birthday to you.
Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday
Happy Birthday to me.
Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday
Happy Birthday to you.


If your day has been long, if your day has been hard,
If your day has been fun and a real trump card.
If you’re feeling cold and the tears wet your eyes
If  the sun has been shining and your spirit’s high.


Chorus


I wish you success and happiness
Through the dark days and long nights
and bright days and light nights.
With youth on your side and a world that is wide
Make the most of your talents and don’t let them slide.


Time can slip by like the wink of an eye,
Quick as a flick of an electric switch.
Time is a vagabond that’ll never return
Be sure to squeeze from him whatever you yearn.


Open the windows and doors of your mind
Don’t keep them closed and to the world be blind.
There’s tasks to perform and there’s deeds to be done
They’ll be woven with laughter, loving, sadness and fun.


Don’t sink into despair, don’t get caught in it’s snare
‘cos no one has yet found an answer there.
And I hope you find love that is lasting and true
and find strength to cope with all life puts you through.


So now as this song fades from your ears
I hope on your birthday, you’ll be dressed in good cheer.
Keep your head to the sun and never lose sight
If life’s crazing paving should cause you to fright.

I’d Like to Write A Song For You

I’D LIKE TO WRITE A SONG FOR YOU
©Trev Teasdel Coventry Jan 76 / May 79


I’d like to write a song for you
But where do I start?
With all the love songs in the world
How could it stand apart?
Is there an essence I could find
On which none have touched or dwelt?
A single sentiment but often felt?
Does it really matter
that to the age old world
My words, my love arn’t new/
For this is the first time
I have ever said
I really really really do love you.


Chorus
And I really really do love you
Though to the world it’s nothing new.
I really really do love you
And to me it’s brand new.
There’s a million ways i could prove it’s true
That i really really really do love you.


Can something so intangible
be touched upon by words?
Can a feeling so sublime
be captured in a tank of verse/
Can one paint one’s ecstasy
in all it’s colours on the wall?
When love is an object
in free fall.
Can a rave review of a ballet
convey more than a token of its splendour.
No, so let us throwaway these words
and let love express itself in all its candour.


To express a lively feeling
in a string of words
One must built with words that come alive.
One must chisel with a patience
til the features transform the clay.
One must learn to balance words
like a waiter with a tray.
Oh my love, is this what you’d really have me do?
I could think of a million better ways
of showing how much I really really do love you.


Oh must I really write a song
It would take me far too long
My feeling’s far too strong
my chisel’s bound to get it wrong
There’s nothing I could say.

Broken Swept Box

BROKEN SCHWEPPES BOX
Trev Teasdel Weston Super Mare December 1972


Swept upon the shore
Sighing to a seagull
who skims the salty air.
And if the sea is kind
She’ll sweep him from the shore.


Upon the quicksandy beach
Tis forsaken and forelorn
Without the faintest quiver
And never no one near.
Till the sea is kind
And sweeps him from the shore.


Upon quick wrothy waves
Tis tossed to and fro
It’s not easy not to be
Swallowed by the waves.
But if the sea is kind
She’ll sweep him from the shore.


It’s hard upon the waves
It’s cold upon the beach
It’s free up in the sky
And if the sea is kind
She’ll show him to the sun.
And if the sea is bright
She may shed some light
upon the path of a solution.

A Tale of Drudgery in the Black Fortress of an Alien Race

A TALE OF DRUDGERY IN THE BLACK
FORTRESS OF AN ALIEN RACE.
©Trev Teasdel Coventry Feb 1970


In the black fortress of an alien race
The gangways are full of hurry n haste
The atmosphere’s full of industrial waste
What dungeon in which to be encased.


The pounding swishing swashing sound
Earning many a fast diminishing pound
Forcing my snaity to the ground
What an asylum in which to be found.


Get your lungs full of contamination
Drudgery’s your destination
In the black witches palace you find your occupation
It fills my soul with a deep aggrivation
What a shanty town in which to be stationed.


What weird and repulsive contraptions
Sterling’s no longer such a big attraction
Want to join the ranks of Tom Paxton.


Full of creative sterility
Full of technical ability
Accepted by the majority
Certainly not accepted by me.


What a way to earn your living
What a way to earn your bread
A house of horror, the place I dread.
Wish I’d stayed in bed
Wish I’d stayed in bed.


Wanna sing my heart out in a song
Don’t wanna live my life in a way that’s wrong
I’ve been captive for far too long
I’m gonna fight, i’ve got to be strong.

The Lord is My Poet

THE LORD IS MY POET
(Oh Sow Me On)
©Trev Teasdel Coventry April 1973


What am I doing hanging around
Dragging my feet ‘long the ground?
The strain’s bearing up under me
I’m straining to be free.
Avoiding the turds on the pavement
To fall down the cracks in the sidewalk.


And just when you think you’ve got a good line
The operator cuts in to tell you it’s time.
It’s one of those days when you think ‘What the hell’
There ain’t no words to tell what it’s like.


Words falling from the knib of my pen
Arranging themselves in lines.
Having no meaning ‘cept to prove they can rhyme.
They are saying ‘Look at me, I’m gonna be a hit’
While I’m sitting back thinking ‘What a load of shit’
Huh! me I don;t feel like much of a rhyme today
I’m a patch falling off someone’s flared out jeans.
oh somebody sow me on right now.


The Lord he is my poet, and I, I am a poem in the making.
Lord I’m shaking, ain;t I shaking.
Lord I’m shaking, ain;t I shaking..
Oh somebody sow me on.


Wondering where this verse’ll take me to.
Needing some music to harmonise with.
I’m beginning to wonder, if I was my author,
Would I write me a better story.
But the Lord is my poet, write on.
I’m shaking, Lord I’m shaking,
Ain;t I shaking, Oh somebody sow me on.
Won’t somebody sow me on…

Tender Touches on my Brow

TENDER TOUCHES ON MY BROW
©Trev Teasdel Coventry March 1968

Refrain
I always will allow, tender touches on my brow
and the plaintive cry of an elusive butterfly,
feet tangled in my tie.

And if into the country we elude
To find that we are being perused
by ardent fans with caravans
motorbikes and blue sedans.

And now I seek the solitude
sacrificed with my vicissitude
sought after like a fugitive
for the leisure they insist I give.

Brushes on the cheek
My baby makes me weak.
Relaxing on the grass
what more can anyone ask.

They consult my intellect
My profile they inspect
I wonder what they expect
from a man that’s so select.

And when at last they dissipate
And I’m feeling kinda great
The scene is so serene
alone with my beauty queen.

The trees they seem to elongate
The clouds that seem to indicate
That love is really at my gate
all my resistance I must eliminate.

Metaphysical Charms

METAPHYSICAL CHARMS
©Trev Teasdel Coventry January 1969

Chorus
She called my name
But all in vain
Can imagine her pain
When I won my claim to fame
as a poet and a singer.

It was such a shame
I really was to blame
She was so mad
When I walked out
I heard her shout my name.
But I had to go and catch my plane.

’twas a long long journey
Wish I hadn’t left so early in the morn,
I was crying until dawn
And when I reached my destination
Like I was so lost and blue
I should never have left you on your own.

I phoned her straight away
And man she cursed me that day
Said she didn’t wanna hear from me
Said she wouldn’t listen to my desperate plea.

I jumped back on the plane
Told them I wasn’t staying’
I had to get back and try on my best tact.
She welcomed me with open arms
She was flowing with metaphysical charms.
The past was in the past as we made amends fast.

Visions of Multi-Storied Cities

VISIONS OF MULTI-STORIED CITIES  
©Trev Teasdel Coventry June 1970

Multi storied cities growing to the sun.
Multi-storied people in abundance
Consuming congested oxygen 
through a piping system
Designed by the electronic architect.
A computer for the Queen 
is launching a porcelain replica of the earth 
to cater for the anticipated increase in population,
 said likely to double present numbers very shortly.

The Pope, now ruler of the earth, 
still forbids the use of contraceptives.
New born babies are fitted with 
synthetic digestive systems, 
designed to digest human excreta 
as food is very scarce.
There’s so many people, 
that they are all contained in blocks, 
standing on each other’s shoulders.
Every necessity comes 
via a pipe or complex pulley system.
Periscopes are fitted for the aristocracy.

Between each bank of towns is a small reservation 
for controlled exercise and breeding purposes.
A special mansion is allocated for the appointed maintainers 
of the cities and  the robots fold up into a draw. 
Boredom is their plight and schizophrenia breeds like flies. 
Computerised music harmonises their idle thoughts. 
All music must be computerised 
and the musician’s union has been dissolved. 
Creativity is dead.

I Will Not Write a Song

I WILL NOT WRITE A SONG
©Trev Teasdel Coventry January 1973


Sitting in my room I read the ‘Siege of Gondor
In the”War of the Ring of Mordor
Full of the dread and the dead and the bloodshed
Enough to make a heart quake and quail.


Putting down the book to sip some coffee
I turned on the radio to hear
The latest dribble of one hit blunders,
when in the gloom of my thought
rose a voice, articulate yet monotoned.
The ‘on the hour‘ BBC newscaster,
communicating to my ears
the latest groans of the wizened and wide world outside.


He told of the bombing of North Vietnam
of truce broken and of suffering
and the dread and dead and the bloodshed.
He told of the earthquakes and looting and gunshooting
and told us to beware of on coming motorway smog.


At this point i would have lit up a fag
cause I could have done with a drag ‘cept I don’t smoke.
And I felt like writing a song and i said to myself ” I’ll write a song
With paper to pen, I thought again and decided against it there and then.
For what can one song do that a thousand before failed to do?
How can one song change the fate of the world, stop a war, open a door or give life to the dying?
What can one man’s tears do to avail
when many a million have been shed but to fail?
How can a song change the fate  of the world?
Yet it is said that a song can influence a man into action
and many have served to serve humbly their cause
but none that I know of, have served to throw off
the evils which besiege our sitting room goggle box gods.
So what can it do to write a song/
No I will not write a song.
I will not, will not, will not write a song.
I may as well conserve the effort and have myself a damn good shit.
So I sipped some more coffee before pulling down the seat to sit upon the loo.
And the shit that i had was a good one too,
the best I had had for along time.
Then i pulled up my pants, flushed the pan, washed my hands
and tightening my belt, I stooped to stroke the Poodle that was
pining to be let out for a pee.
And I opened the door and let him free to free his pee
and somehow I knew that the pee that he peed was the best that he’d peed for a long time.
And shutting the door with  a clunk and a clink
and a pick of my nose, that with a flick, fell to the floor.
I sat on the bed, scratching my head, fearing the dread and the dead and bloodshed.
And if my words to you seem so foul, then how you must howl
at the reasons why I will not write a song.
No I will not, will not, will not write a song.