Five Poems by George Gad Economou

 

A Toast to Billion-Old Deaths

 

nebulas explode in

distant galaxies, by the time the

fireworks reach us we’ll

be long gone; it’s the consolation, things are

dying in the universe right fucking now and

we’re here, drinking, breathing, fucking, living, and they’re

dead.

dead. and we’re alive. we’ll be

dead, others will live, do the same

things we do now, it’s the circle of life, does it

matter? no. I drink now,

I toast the dead stars, the supernovas we won’t

see for a few thousand years. I toast the gods that

died two millennia ago. I am drunk. getting drunker.

feeling supernal. I’m a supernova ready to

happen, a god in the making. Dionysus stands

next to me, tells me “drink more wine.” I listen. I drink.

drunk, I tolerate you. I tolerate the world. I don’t feel like

committing genocide. drunk, I live. sober, I’m deader than

the stars that died ten billion years ago and their dying light just now

reaches our telescopes.

 

Battle Ready

 

after a couple of days of no drinking, I finally

sat down with two six-packs of beer, a bottle of

bourbon. even after a handful of ice-cold beers, I’m

reminded that there are good things in life. during the

couple of dry days, all I did was worry about

everything I can’t control, the things I must get around to

doing. too many thoughts whirled in my

head, rendering the nights sleepless, the mornings restless. with

some booze in my blood, and much more yet to be

consumed, I feel liberated. does it

matter that nothing has been

fixed? no; I’ll

just drink some more tomorrow, and the day after, and so on, until

I either crap my liver out or stumble upon a solution to

the world’s, and my, problems. the beer says

go for it; bourbon barks

fight. the mistresses of the night come

clawing, I put on my rum-laced condom and

get ready for another fight.

 

Yapping in the Wrong Places

 

“damn, man, my wife left me just this

morning, said she fell in love with her personal trainer. twenty-

seven years drained into the gutter,” my barstool

neighbor told me in a quivering voice. I was on

beer seven, and double Four Roses eight. “see the sign?” I

pointed at the large chalkboard next to the  liquor shelves.

SHUT UP AND DRINK. “how about you

do that? it’ll help with the pain. hey, Jim,” I called

the bartender, “three double Four Roses; no ice this time.”

“you know I don’t drink anything but shots while on duty,”

he said. “okay, okay, get your shot. still three

doubles.”

“it’s just the two of us, right?” the neighbor asked, peering

about trying to find our elusive, if not invisible, drinking compatriot.

“yeah. so, either I’m seeing double or I’m really thirsty.” I downed

the first double, chased it with some beer, then sipped on the other

glass. “just thirsty; there’s still only one of you.”

“so, my wife, I…”

“again,” I groaned, “read the sign. better yet, stare

at it while you’re in here.”

 

Drowning But Saved

 

long days of

no drinking, sipping coffee and inhaling stale tobacco,

trying to find meaning in the mess, desperate

attempts to change things that’ll forever

stay the same. embracing the

darkness, avoiding the sun like

a vampire; nothing good ever

comes from the world, stay inside in

the cool, avoid the heat, the scorching sun, the

army of ghouls flooding the sidewalks. coffee,

cigarettes, music, and the blank page. ten years

of changes that never came, ten years of

dissipating into the fantasies of a

better tomorrow.  it’s when the

first lowball of Four Roses is poured that

everything begins to

make some sense. everything’s still

the same but encapsulated by a refulgent

film of hope.

 

Envisioning the Bar

 

getting drunk and

rowdy, it’s how

every night must

be spent, otherwise why

are we alive? Dionysus preached

this two millennia ago, it still

rings true, despite the honest attempts of

many a teetotaler to convince us that

hooch is

evil. ancient

drunkards are still read, still influence

literature and philosophy, while the

dries vanish into the well of

history, footnotes of footnotes at best.

I raise my lowball of bourbon to

the skies, to the Bar, to all the patrons

that drank their visions into

reality and now drink eternity

away; I once stepped inside the

Bar when I OD’ed. now, I’m fighting

to make sure the claim on that corner barstool

doesn’t diminish.

George Gad Economou - Currently residing in Greece, George Gad Economou has a Master’s degree in Philosophy of Science and is the author of Letters to S. (Storylandia), Bourbon Bottles and Broken Beds (Adelaide Books), and Of the Riverside (Anxiety Press). His words have also appeared, amongst other places, in Spillwords Press, Ariel Chart, Cajun Mutt Press, Fixator Press, Outcast Press, The Piker Press, The Edge of Humanity Magazine, The Rye Whiskey Review, and Modern Drunkard Magazine.