Streetbattle

STREETBATTLE
by Trev Teasdel Coventry 1980

                Divert the traffic, clear the streets
                                                                                The slogan’s written, the plan’s complete.

The placards painted, the people out

With raging passions to chant and shout.

Clear the streets, move that car.

Board the windows of shop and bar.

Heed the word, heed the call

No one’s safe around here at all.

Police on horseback, truncheon toting

Streets are hunched in mute foreboding.

Helicopters circle low, co-ordinate via radio.

Escorts ready, formations planned

Handcuffs and batons close to hand.

Heed the word, heed the call

No one’s safe around here at all.

A route-march chosen, a streetplan open

Spearhead banners – poison poking.

An immigrant area, well it goes unspoken.

Cornershop window will soon be broken

Hymns to Hitler, dreams of greatness

A ghost of the past that will not rest.

Heed the word, heed the call

No one’s safe around here at all.

 A sudden shower, sticks and stones hurled

Cops ‘neath viziers quickly curled.

Burning issues of the age

Nominate the street their stage.

I said - Burning issues of the age

Nominate the street their stage.

A confrontation, quick the cameras

Inform headquarters, fetch the ambulance

Effect plan b, put in operation

‘If this thing spreads, god help the nation’

Release the gas, fire the blanks

‘Action, action, disperse the ranks’

Heed the word, heed the call,

No one’s safe around here at all.

Now the cameras pan, the chanters all join hands

The battle in the streets obeyed no-one’s plans.

An ambulance left, a police car burned

All agreed there were lesson’s to be learnt

Blood in puddles, mud in wounds

A peak-capped man cried ‘Damn them coons’

Burning issues of the age

Nominate the street their stage.

Clear the debris in the streets

Assess the damage done to property

Compile statistics on loss of trade

‘Stop press, fresh outbreak, city arcade’

Camera crews, trigger happy

Edit that newsreel, make it snappy.

Divert attention from real issues

Package ‘specially for the news

Heed the word, heed the call

Jackboot’s marching on us all.

..............................................

I wrote this early 1980 before I left Coventry. The telly was on, the news on the dustbin men were on strike, picket lines,  police in riot shields - you get the picture. Followed by a documentary on the Nat. Front, looking at all angles, the police planning, the Front, the opposition, the targeted communities, police helicopters, the aftermath, the reappraisal. this was the song of the film. I'm not a marching person but many of my friends were Asian or Jamician decent or second generation and I was appalled at the harrassment and racism. Sometimes you have to make a stand - I went a on a few anti racist marches. The world should live as one period!

I was strumming some ascending chords while telly played and the words formulated. I later did it as a rapping poem at spoken word events and it appeared in my first book of poems The Escaped Poet (1984) - Poetic Licence Collective. A Coventry musician who was also at Teesside Poly in the early 80's took the lyric to play with his Coventry band (forget the name off hand) but I never heard it.