Poetry: Selections From George Gad Economou

Funereal Drinks

 

the rain fell on us as if the

sky was crying with us; of course, in

a country like Denmark, sunshine’s the rare weather.

dark clouds hovered above our heads, almost

as dark as the mist encapsulating my withering soul.

some final words from the priest, we carried the

coffin to the hearse and off it went, heading for the

crematorium.

it was her last wish, to be cremated and buried in one

of the many nameless graves in Danish cemeteries, where

urns are placed in the ground with no tombstone or markings.

my Emily, she was soon going to be ashes in the ground and my

hands were shaking, and not only because of the booze or the junk sickness.

as the hearse drove away, I staggered away, unwilling to

suffer through conversations with her parents and the few family

friends that showed up.

I was rugged, clean of junk, rock, and blow for

three days and buzzed on half a fifth of Evan Williams.

people looked at me as I battled tears on my way down to

the city center, and our bar, and I wished to

punch them all on the nose just to get back to the 

Devil that decided Emily was the one to join His poker table.

“where’s Emily?” Jim asked when I slumbered into the

bar and hoisted my carcass on my barstool.

“dead,” I said.

he asked what happened; told him she OD’ed and that we had

just buried her.

“fuck,” he said. “everything you drink is on the house.”

he handed me a bottle of Jim Beam and a bottle of Jose Cuervo.

I started taking pulls out of both. there wasn’t enough booze

in the world to drown the pain and it was the only

time in my life free booze tasted like horsepiss.

 

 

 

Health Issues

 

“you’re fat,” I was told recently, again.

“I know,” I responded. I suppose they wanted me

to say I’ll change my diet, or start exercising; that I’ll somehow

decide, at thirty-five, to care about extending my life expectancy.

I don’t. I don’t care about my beer belly; took me two decades of

boozing to build it.

I barely eat but I drink more than three meals nightly; even

bourbon has calories, apparently. doesn’t matter.

I’ve been on a death path since I turned fifteen, yet

I’m still alive; survived an OD, a decade of

abusing every drug under the sun, drunken sex (probably

rubberless in several occasions) with a lot of strange women,

and a lot of stuff better left unmentioned.

I’m still alive, somehow, and I doubt some extra weight

will be the reason I croak. one day, I’ll kick the bucket (literally).

until then, I’ll just drink until my liver gives birth to

a better one.

 

 

 

Omnipresent Muse

 

fifteen years ago I held

Emily in my arms, and it

was a fateful night I wish I could

not remember that she exhaled her very last

breath while resting her head on my shoulder.

I was high on junk, took me a few hours to understand

what had happened; to fathom she’d burned too

much brown-tar heroin and intentionally shot herself to the other side.

fifteen years later, and at least a hundred algid embraces

later, she remains the only inspiration. my Muse from

below, the Muse that’s playing poke with our horned friend

and makes sure I’m kept alive so I can bang out

hollow words on blank pages.

she’s there when I get drunk in bars,

she’s there when I drink tainted vodka in shady whorehouses,

she’s there when strippers offer me free lapdances,

she’s there when I down two fifths of Four Roses on a Tuesday.

inspiration can exist anywhere, I only found it

in a pair of glistening green eyes that have haunted my life

and as I tumble down another rabbit hole, breaking the last

intact vein in my body, I hear her gentle laughter echo

in my dug up grave.

 

 

 

Drinking With Ghosts

 

raising my glass to the whispering ghosts flooding my apartment.

some nights are made to be nostalgic and the more

booze you pour down your throat, the louder the ghosts become.

memories come back; you sit back and drink, reliving

the best and worst moments of your life.

I’m taken back to different bars, to when I met

Emily and Christine, the two women that took a piece of my

stony, diseased heart.

I’m back to Park Allé in Aarhus, when I walked away from the bus

stop after Bircan climbed on the bus and I thought it’d be the

last time I ever saw her.

I’m back in my underground strip joint, the first time I

visited and realized Gina had gone into the turbulent night.

I’m standing in front of my old dive, visiting Aarhus after

several years, only to discover it’d  turned into a Vietnamese restaurant.

I’m suddenly eight years old, seeing my grandfather dead on his armchair.

I’m sitting in a park in Aarhus, swilling lukewarm beer with a methhead.

I’m in my old apartment, five in the morning and I’m baking and shaking more ice.

I dig deep, yet can’t find memories of people I used to call friends here in Athens.

I drink some more, the same memories keep reappearing; blurry faces of

women pop up, nights of booze and coke that were meant to be forgotten.

my biggest sins, my greatest triumphs. life and death,

being nowhere and everywhere.

what’s important becomes clear when you’re older,

when you’ve lived long enough, and experienced more than enough.

I’m nineteen again, living in a dorm house and using the shared microwave

to cut blow after Michelle, a 41-year-old ex-prostitute, showed me how.

I still miss her. I don’t miss my “best friends” from high school.

life would have been the same if I hadn’t met them;

I’d be a different person if it wasn’t for Michelle, or Bircan.

if I hadn’t stepped into Jim’s bar that one lazy afternoon I just wanted a beer.

I’d be dead if I hadn’t met Christine.

I’d never have known love if I hadn’t met Emily in a dirty bar.

I’d still be the same asshole if I had different friends in school.

life’s all about choices; most of them don’t matter, but some precious

few do and it’s best to be vigilant because one wrong choice can

fuck shit up way beyond repair.

 

 

 

 

 

George Gad Economou resides in Greece and holds a Master’s degree in Philosophy of Science and supports his writing by doing freelance jobs whenever he can get them. He has published a novella, Letters to S. (Storylandia) and a poetry collection, Bourbon Bottles and Broken Beds (Adelaide Books) and his drunken words have also appeared in various literary magazines and outlets, such as Spillwords Press, Ariel Chart, Fixator Press, Piker’s Press, A Thin Slice of Anxiety, The Edge of Humanity Magazine, The Rye Whiskey Review, and Modern Drunkard Magazine.