Poetry: Selections From George Gad Economou

Heroin Woman

 

“let’s do something tonight,” she says for the umpteenth time

and I already know it’s nothing but another

empty promise.

stillborn plans born out of false enthusiasm

that get cancelled a few hours later.

I drink them all away,

and I drink her away, too.

I’ve got Evan Williams and Four Roses.

the whispering ghosts remind me I

used to make empty promises, too.

if I believed in karma, I’d say I’m paying overdue debts.

I get drunk and the next empty promise lands on my deaf ears.

I get drunk and she’s gone from my mind.

I drink some more and I feel all right.

she’s like heroin; always promising nirvana

but offering nothing but flaming meadows of death.

it’s the reason I refuse to let her go.

Old Home

 

nights I miss my dive,

nights I miss Jim behind the counter

wiping down glasses and offering smidgens of wisdom

in between pouring triple Four Roses and charging them for a single.

every problem I’ve ever had, Jim heard about it.

when Emily died, Jim consoled me with strong pours and words of wisdom.

when Christine left, he was there to see me drink through it.

when Gina took the midnight train to elsewhere,

Jim kept on pouring. 

he even kept me out of jail when I got into fights.

now, he’s gone. I live in a different country.

last time I visited, my dive had turned into a Vietnamese restaurant.

I don’t have a bartender to pore my heart out to while he

pours the bourbon like my life depends on it (it often does).

I drink alone, at home,

trying to hide another heartbreak into the blackout mist.

Jim’s not here to offer his smidgens of wisdom.

maybe, he’s dead.

maybe, he’s alive, serving drinks to other hopeless drunks.

maybe, he sold the dive for enough money to buy himself a

house in an exotic location, and he’s now having someone

else serve him drinks.

I don’t know. I can’t know.

I can only imagine.

I have another drink.

drinking another heartbreak away.

and goddamn it I wish I could haul my ass back to

my old dive, fight some drunk bastard, then share

a few beers with bikers.

Jim would keep me out of jail, the bikers would offer drugs,

and I’d end up home with some drunk lonely woman looking to

escape her dull marriage.

dives are where the heart truly beats,

where the booze river flows,

and the longer I’m away from them,

the less I feel like myself.

Chasing Yesterdays

 

I’m chasing refulgent yesterdays by

seeking dead tomorrows.

cold replacements, algid embraces, frigid kisses.

been there, done that.

I’m doing it now, and I’ll do it again.

the rotgut in my waterglass says “enough’s enough”

but I refuse to listen.

again.

it’s on me.

I don’t care.

I’m getting drunk(er).

things that shouldn’t somehow make sense,

excuses sound plausible,

empty promises are perhaps real in some other universe.

I drink,

I lose my mind.

I’m chasing supernal yesterdays in stillborn tomorrows.

as long as there’s booze in the glass

I feel that everything’s possible.

come tomorrow, I’ll regret losing myself in

another cold replacement that should have never entered my life.

Promising Beginnings

 

promising beginnings, as always,

filled with great expectations and endless

plans for the long-term future.

there are always wolves howling in the distance

but their warnings go unheeded.

it’s the initial enthusiasm that gets

me every time, that brings back memories

I’ve been trying to drink away for more than a decade.

I drink another disappointment

away; getting ready to move on, to

embrace the exquisite madness of being alone.

me, my thoughts, and booze; it worked great for

a long time, there’s no point in

trying to change the only recipe that kept me

alive by keep letting new people in that

come with promising beginnings and nothing else.

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.