HALLOWELL — The public is invited to join the Beet Poets of Wayne at 7 p.m. Friday, Nov. 22, as they present an evening of poetry, storytelling and music at the Harlow Gallery, 160 Water Street.

The Beet Poets of Wayne, Maine are friends and neighbors David Moreau, Jay Franzel and Stan Davis. Franzel and Moreau will be reading their poetry, followed by Davis performing a story accompanied with music (autoharp and various guitars), ending with Franzel and Moreau again performing poetry accompanied by Davis playing bass and sharing vocal refrains and chanting. Adventure of the spirit is guaranteed.

The evening’s performance will be recorded live onto a CD, The Beet Poets Live at the Harlow Gallery.

A $3 donation is requested.

About the artists

Jay Franzel writes thoughtful poems that often reflect the mystery of the natural world, but he also writes about coffee, Franz Kafka and the bridges of New York City, where he grew up. He has worked with at-risk students for more than twenty years and currently teaches in Winthrop.

Stan Davis is a musician, singer and storyteller. He recently retired as a family therapist and school counselor and continues to speak all over the world about bullying prevention. Stan is a proud member of Hurry Down Sunshine, a folk/blues duo that performs frequently in the area.

David Moreau works in Lewiston with adults with developmental disabilities. His book You Can Still Go to Hell and Other Truths about Being a Helping Professional is Moon Pie Press’s all time best seller. His poems have been read by Garrison Keillor on the Writer’s Almanac three times.

A Love Supreme

At a bus stop in San Francisco in 1980,

an old drunk dances unsteadily down on the corner.

He bends low within himself and bellows,

“Ah played with John COLTRANE.

Do ya HEAH me?

Ah played with JOHN COLtrane!”

The others waiting for the twenty-two Fillmore

roll their eyes and snicker

and I can’t claim that I believe him,

but acknowledge that somewhere

in the sad history of the world

the solo he plays tonight

harmonizes a mournful

and passionate song. — David Moreau

Midnight P-Ridge

Along the dark road

I feel the fields silent

and invisible beckon

with soft bedding,

breezes, willing earth.

Is it the wind or your spirit

brushing my cheek?

What’s been gripping me lately

gently paralyzing, disorienting,

seems to blow in like dark clouds

or locust, silently over fields,

something seasonal, almost planetary.

High in the southern sky

glowing, like a red gemstone

lit with yellow back-light,

Mars gleams, not angrily as in the myths

but puzzled, maybe at the wars

battering earth’s orbit.

Outsized orange half-moon

caught among treetops – I’m sick

of unreachable beauty, sick

of gravity and my own fixed

broken orbit – once, if cut free

I would have panicked, now

I’d simply stretch until I reached you

floating by, one more shooting star. — Jay Franzel

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