The Napkin Poems

THE NAPKIN POEMS

JOE NASTA

zines: issue.com/joenasta blog: ello.co/jnasty insta: @jrnasta August 2017 Honolulu, Hawaii

I feel the most at home here, amber glass half full /on a sticky round table, the leather pillow of a booth beneath me,/ the hum of people in the red lighted space always below a shrieking voice and beating kettle drum.//Writing on a napkin, finally alone--am I breathing or crying, writing poetry, memoir or a suicide note?//The paintings are all oily blues and whites on black felt./ The paintings show an Indian on a horse raising his spear, / a young boy bending his bright-haired head in prayer,/ a crudely formed bottle of 'Cerveza.' //

The paintings, I want to steal them all./It's getting late, and since they left the basement bar is filling up. / I wonder if taking up a whole booth is excessive.// Live commentary on the record is like Kerouac reading American haiku.//The glass, now empty/sits red filled/ on the table//The boy, now man/sits empty/ at the table// (and some seasonal turn shit)// The Luchador printed on the table / leers. The busboy clears our/ three glasses.

Different times + people at Cha Cha’s / how different things at the same place are the SAME // how different things at the same place are// DIFFERENT.

x

"I stopped caring a long/ time ago what people think/ when they see me drinking/ alone at the bar// (this girl tapping her/ aluminum Bud Light/ empty on the counter she/ won't tip well anyway)// I don't even wonder what any/ one thinks of me alone on the stool/ writing on a napkin// (people say 'excuse me' as if/ the bartender doesn't notice/ them, as if when he's not/ serving them,

Joke: An alcoholic walks into a bar.// Joke: An alcoholic walks.///

I’d rather you didn’t/ get my jokes, I think/ it’s funnier when they/ need to be explained.///

Joke: A writer and a couple walk into a bar// Joke: The couple leaves.

All these poets saying / the same things // (but I’m reading them, these/ poets with their / perfect craft // (who am I anyway ?

Jack always wrote his drunk meditations, there was merit in them, so he thought—what about the rest of us, so we think?

Looking at published poetry books & “how do I become them” & the answer is not what I am reading.

#1 //Dallin, dirty blond shock of grass so tall in the crowd/ I didn’t know any one, this was my first/time out in Seattle, it was/a Tuesday.//I showed up early./The thought, not of him but of even being here/made me want to close my eyes and shake.//Instead of going in I walked/ up and down the block, pacing/breathing the cold-still April air.

#2 //The Thursday after I met EfraĂ­n./A Mexican but in his photos on Tinder he looked taller./I sat upstairs without ordering anything/ because I expected him to come for a half hour before/he showed up// with a friend for safety. She left/ immediately. We had two drinks, went to his place// and I came before he did because he had an uncut cock.

You think there are sombreros hanging from the ceiling I think there are people upside down from the floor above You think there is a spilled margarita below the stool I think it is a pool of piss

I always sit in the poetry events//

I moved up, but I at the edge of the

When I entered the door,/ I stuttered with my feet.//Sensing, knowing, they said, “Nice/ to see You!� even though// I was certainly/ nobody.

e back at

still sit e row

Playing with shape/is finding meaning/ is m a k i n g sense/ of what this is

I’m okay with an uncertainty////

as long as it’s a possibility

Poetry August 2017 Honolulu, Hawaii