Poetry Yes

Downhill From Everywhere - Jackson Browne


Downhill from the prison
Downhill from the mall
Downhill from the factory farm and the hospital
Downhill from the border wall
Downhill from the high school
Downhill from the gym
Downhill from the church and the stadium
Downhill from the baby's room
Downhill from the office
Downhill from the bar
Downhill from the theme park and the family car
Downhill from happy hour
Downhill from everywhere
Downhill from all you see
The ocean is downhill from gravity
Downhill from here
Downhill from everywhere
Downhill from all of humanity
Downhill from the silver screen
Downhill from the end of the sea
Downhill from the vineyard
Downhill from the mine
Downhill from the fruity plain and the bottom line
Downhill from Columbine
Downhill from the racetrack
Downhill from the news
Downhill from the sponsors and the camera crews
Downhill from the pain to lose

Downhill from God's golden shore
Downhill from the grocery store
Downhill from the center floor
K Street, and the never-ending war
Downhill from everywhere
Downhill from all you see
The ocean is the last stop for gravity
Downhill from here
Downhill from everywhere
All mankind's ambition and validity
Do you think of the ocean as yours?
Because you need the ocean to breathe
Every second breath you take
Is coming from the sea
We don't really know
Because we don't really see
Do you think of the ocean as yours?
Do you think about it at all?
Downhill from the campus
Downhill from the loan
Downhill from the funeral home
Downhill from the laptop
Downhill from the trough
Downhill from the Russian doll
Downhill from the N.R.A
Downhill from the G.O.P
Downhill from the I.C.E

And you hide all the masses trying to be free

Oh, yeah

Sometimes a wild god comes to the table.
He is awkward and does not know the ways
Of porcelain, of fork and mustard and silver.
His voice makes vinegar from wine.


When the wild god arrives at the door,
You will probably fear him.
He reminds you of something dark
That you might have dreamt,
Or the secret you do not wish to be shared.


He will not ring the doorbell;
Instead he scrapes with his fingers
Leaving blood on the paintwork,
Though primroses grow
In circles round his feet.


You do not want to let him in.
You are very busy.
It is late, or early, and besides…
You cannot look at him straight
Because he makes you want to cry.


Your dog barks;
The wild god smiles.
He holds out his hand and
The dog licks his wounds,
Then leads him inside.


The wild god stands in your kitchen.
Ivy is taking over your sideboard;
Mistletoe has moved into the lampshades
And wrens have begun to sing
An old song in the mouth of your kettle.


‘I haven’t much,’ you say
And give him the worst of your food.
He sits at the table, bleeding.
He coughs up foxes.
There are otters in his eyes.


When your wife calls down,
You close the door and
Tell her it’s fine.
You will not let her see
The strange guest at your table.


The wild god asks for whiskey
And you pour a glass for him,
Then a glass for yourself.
Three snakes are beginning to nest
In your voicebox. You cough.


Oh, limitless space.
Oh, eternal mystery.
Oh, endless cycles of death and birth.
Oh, miracle of life.
Oh, the wondrous dance of it all.


You cough again,
Expectorate the snakes and
Water down the whiskey,
Wondering how you got so old
And where your passion went.


The wild god reaches into a bag
Made of moles and nightingale-skin.
He pulls out a two-reeded pipe,
Raises an eyebrow
And all the birds begin to sing.



The fox leaps into your eyes.
Otters rush from the darkness.
The snakes pour through your body.
Your dog howls and upstairs
Your wife both exults and weeps at once.


The wild god dances with your dog.
You dance with the sparrows.
A white stag pulls up a stool
And bellows hymns to enchantments.
A pelican leaps from chair to chair.


In the distance, warriors pour from their tombs.
Ancient gold grows like grass in the fields.
Everyone dreams the words to long-forgotten songs.
The hills echo and the grey stones ring
With laughter and madness and pain.


In the middle of the dance,
The house takes off from the ground.
Clouds climb through the windows;
Lightning pounds its fists on the table
And the moon leans in.


The wild god points to your side.
You are bleeding heavily.
You have been bleeding for a long time,
Possibly since you were born.
There is a bear in the wound.


‘Why did you leave me to die?’
Asks the wild god and you say:
‘I was busy surviving.
The shops were all closed;
I didn’t know how. I’m sorry.’


Listen to them:


The fox in your neck and
The snakes in your arms and
The wren and the sparrow and the deer…
The great un-nameable beasts

In your liver and your kidneys and your heart…


There is a symphony of howling.
A cacophony of dissent.
The wild god nods his head and
You wake on the floor holding a knife,

A bottle and a handful of black fur.


Your dog is asleep on the table.
Your wife is stirring, far above.
Your cheeks are wet with tears;
Your mouth aches from laughter or shouting.

A black bear is sitting by the fire.


Sometimes a wild god comes to the table.
He is awkward and does not know the ways
Of porcelain, of fork and mustard and silver.

His voice makes vinegar from wine

And brings the dead to life.

"Instrumentation" written by Poet Laureate Ada Limòn 


This little gem  reinforces our belief that poetry and music are meant for one another, meant to be heard, often to be heard together.  Listen to Gene recite "Instrumentation" from. Ada Limòn

Poet Laureate of the USA. 


Circles Of Our Lives

by Wendell Berry


Within the circle of our lives
we dance the circle of the years,
the circles of the seasons
within the circles of the years,
the cycles of the moon
within the circles of the season,
the circles of our reasons
within the cycles of the moon.


Again, again we come and go,
changed, changing. Hands
join, unjoin in love and fear,
grief and joy. The circles turn,
each giving into each, into all.
Only music keeps us here,


each by all the others held.


In the hold of hands and eyes
we turn in pairs, that joining
joining each to all again.


And then we turn aside, alone,
out of the sunlight gone


into the darker circles of return.


(Gene's ending)

the long path to the full moon

step by step

the cycles of the moon over the sea

step by step on the ancient highway

into the very night

ballerina 

human nature

I believe I will transcend myself 

transcend myself...child

A PLACE TO VISIT
. . . are we near “End Times”?


Near January’s end of days while their voices rise in evening’s air
Slept in I presume brunch with mimosas and now evening’s cock-
Tails laughter and politics family stories articulated all this filled
With bursting youthful cackling laughter gleaning from joyfulness


Now to the first of February calling out to Saint Brigit the Celtic/
Gaelic Brigid Goddess of poetry light and water I needed a drink
How about having a glass of Inverness water that flows from the
Hills without castles down streams where wee Fairies stir about


The question that comes to mind as I sit here and listen while the
Sun reaching it’s evening shadows the voices of walkers lift from
Pine Hill Dr. balancing the children’s shrieking glee from Chicken
Ranch and yet more shouts of joy ebb and flow from that beach


Now to the second of February having had a long rich conversation
with one in our fellowship now living on the island Oahu in Hawaii
Studying at the university in Honolulu and stats have proved sobriety
is a baffling challenge we know that most poetry will ring them bells


Still in the chill on this Candlemas Day cumulous rolling past the last

Blue I watch and listen to its silence and catch a glimpse of the mag-Nificent Osprey in searching wing’ed wonder over the grey bay water

If there were a storm unresolved I would seek certain warm comfort

Gene Ptak is BeanSleeves

Hosts Poetry Now on KWMR FM Radio Weds at 10 am Pacific

12 pm Central - 1 pm Eastern  

https://kwmr.org/listen-anywhere


Above is a photo Gene and short scene that is as relevant today as it was in Shakespeare's time.

I Am A Prayer

by Joy Harjo


I am a prayer
I am a prayer of rain in the desert when the flowering ones need a drink
I am a prayer
I am a prayer of sun when there is no end to night
I am a prayer
I am a prayer of ocean when there is no more blue
I am a prayer
I am a prayer of clouds when few make rain songs
I am a prayer
I am a prayer of roads that lead everywhere but home
I am a prayer
I am a prayer of white birds who cannot fly through a storm of fear
I am a prayer
I am a prayer of fire who arrived to care for humans, then was misused to destroy
I am a prayer
I am a prayer of wind, whose breathing carries seeds, pollen, and songs to feed the generations
I am a prayer
I am a prayer of moon who wears the night as a shawl to hide that which should

never be spoken
I am a prayer
I am a prayer of grief, when life gambled with death and gave up families for guns
I am a prayer
I am a prayer of smoke, wandering the broken houses, the littered ground looking

for a white flag of reason
I am a prayer
I am a prayer of mountains, those tall humble ones who agreed to lift our eyes to see
I am a prayer
I am a prayer of forever making a path of beauty through the rubble of eternity
I am a prayer
I am a prayer of poetry speaking the soundlessness of the dead who return to speak

in prayer

I am a prayer with children on my back roaming the earth house of destruction and creation

I am a prayer without end

Encyclopedias and empires go extinct. Eternity isn’t an option. Enjoy the evanescent moon before it evaporates into another eerie dawn, eerie day. Shuttered used car lot across the street from Wastequip headquarters sells eggs for $3 a dozen and flies a Blue Lives Matter flag. It’s the ecosystem nowadays. The Anthropocene. Chickens coming home to roast. The rent is overdue. Eventually we won’t be hired any more, won’t be here anymore. It happened at the Energizer battery factory in Burlington, Vermont. Imagine the Energizer Bunny with no more joie de vivre. “We are committed to making our colleagues’ transition(s) as smooth as possible.” So start searching for jobs on Indeed. Please. It’s always been about entropy. At either end of Lake Erie, the abandoned factories: Buffalo, Cleveland, Toledo, Detroit (though a few factories have been gentrified into condos for the elites). Drive through Albany and head east. Drive from Pittsfield to North Adams to the Vermont border. Endless empty parking lots, endless erosion. It isn’t erroneous to think this way. It’s the essence of this country. The evacuations will be everlasting.

At the end of my suffering
there was a door.


Hear me out: that which you call death
I remember.


Overhead, noises, branches of the pine shifting.
Then nothing. The weak sun
flickered over the dry surface.


It is terrible to survive
as consciousness
buried in the dark earth.


Then it was over: that which you fear, being
a soul and unable
to speak, ending abruptly, the stiff earth
bending a little. And what I took to be
birds darting in low shrubs.


You who do not remember
passage from the other world
I tell you I could speak again: whatever
returns from oblivion returns
to find a voice:


from the center of my life came
a great fountain, deep blue
shadows on azure seawater.

Downhill From Everywhere

This is a cover of Jackson Browne's song for COVID Cathartic event at Inverness, CA.  

The Band: Kristen McDonald, cello; Van Van Der Maaten, guitar; (RIP) Ross Perry, mandolin;

Jack Kramer, harmonica;  Axel Nelson, 12 string; Gene, vocals.

"Sometimes A Wild God" by Tom Hirons and recited by Gene Ptak
available www.hedgespokenpress.com
"Caterpillar On My Shoulder" written and recited by Gene Ptak


Caterpillar On My Shoulder


A park bench collared between two giant redwoods
               In a meadow of ancestral miwok
               waiting for the bus
Close by the little creek winds round
               The bay laurel scents sail up & into the
Blooming sky                      all too, too misbehaving distractions
               & Fail to point out the caterpillar’s
On my shoulder                 getting off whistlestop bus
On my shoulder sweet sixteen legs                          six pairs of eyes
               And I ask how did you end up                                    on my shoulder
Caterpillar you’re so busy with light, but no images                         imagine
               About to become the beauteous wing’ed wonder
Metamorphosing larva      pupa transcending transition
                                                         GOOD GOD!
Reproductive (imago) too late             too late to stop now
               Chrysalis open say-so-me power greater than self
                          Non-self
                                         Ourselves

Yeah          yes           where is the valley when you need the fairies

                                                                                  To take your hand transcending

                                                                                                   Transcendent

                                                                                                     Child of God

"Footprints Against Forgetting" written and recited by Gene Ptak


Footprints Against Forgetting


The last dance and those footprints in the sand on the edge of that sea
           celebrate a laid back and laughing
                                                                                       crying for poetry and power
                                                                                       energized influence
                                                                                       nonetheless dear friend
We will survive with “sister muse” her afflatus stimuli and a divine light
           leading us hand in hand to ”exactly where we need to be”
           oh no, oh no                    I want an exacting nature of where we must be
           action inspired by emotional sobriety
           final poems representing our spirits cleansed and dried in the sun


We need a celebration and another term to describe the space between

            translation of birth and biographical notes illuminating eyes of chance

             and; oh what’s it called                          reality…


Instrumentation by Ada Limòn


If I could ever to play an instrument for real I like the idea of playing the jawbone,
that rattle of something dead in your hands, that thing that beats back at the sky
and says, I am still here, even though clearly the donkey isn’t here or the horse isn’t
here, just the teeth and the jaw making music like resurrection or haunting or just

plain need. What I like most is that the jawbone is an idiophone, which I misread

once as ideaphone. But an idiophone is just that it makes music by the whole thing

vibrating without strings. I want that. That kind of reeling in the wind. All the

loose dry teeth, all the old bones of the skull, all the world, and the figure swaying

with its stick to make untuned music even death cannot deny.

Circles Of Our Lives


This poem was written by Wendell Berry recited by Gene – a beautiful mellow sound. The last part is by Gene and his ad lib reaction leading us out with a soothing finish. Relax and listen.  It's stunningly good. Lyrics below, plus 2 videos performances.  

2 BeanSleeve Originals – Kristen McDonald On Cello

Performed for COVID Cathartic event in Inverness, CA 2021.  Lyrics below.

Outside Of Watermelon Sugar


Tonight @ dusk a slow drawling hissing of cars passing on the blvd.
returning from the sea
a moment’s silence then broken by voices from the Bay beach
below
then again silence for what I presume
{the presumptuous assumption}
a Ca. Quail’s sad solo chop-chirp-cheep almost
some say it’s as if their saying Chicago
{Pottawattamie sheecawgo river of the wild onion smell}

The last light failing with glorifying glow on burnt orange leaf of Japanese Mable
now it seems to be a yawning song of an Acorn Woodpecker
O don’t tell me I wait for another hissing passing car
a tree frog
look an Egret coming home and another
close to the shore both to their Cypress nesting
I say even knowing they cannot hear me
{I’m saying it in my mind/brain}
I say: “nighty night and see you in the morning!”
you see they will
wide wing air brush
crossing the Bay for
Milerton Point B&B for
gopher delight oops! first silent blind bat it’s gettin dark good night Inverness, Ca.

Another Of Being Outside


It’s morning with that “Lucky Old Sun”
rising behind
and above those
grey and black streaking clouds
this time with soft brushing of burnt orange
I think I’ll just look for awhile what’s that!
the wild KEE-YAR of a red shouldered hawk
he’s taloned a quail fledgling
a fist grip
and again silent
this countered with an acorn woodpecker’s refrain
or is it a response or is it a riposte
all this followed with mourning doves mournful
quails wailing O O good morning Inverness
now for some morning jazz
Squirrel bark
and a leap from mansard roof to a fire pine
a bishops scurry scratching up the first limb
raised full tail trundle to cone cluster
green cone brown cone no matter
nutrients galore and conifers chips everywhere beneath time to sweep the deck, what the heck?