Poems
by George Gad Economou

Wrong Dance

 

this new keyboard feels wrong,

the lines don’t dance like they used to. it’s

impossible to type, to make words do the tango,

 

impossible to coerce some rhythm.

the fingers don’t know where to go, what to do,

the pace dwindles; writing on the wrong keyboard

is like fucking a devoted nun, like sleeping next

to a woman that doesn’t have a husband looking for her with a shotgun.

 

 

 

 

Silent Nights

 

moon’s up once more, fifth glass of rotgut poured; phone’s

been silent and there’s no feeling more

supernal. no annoying voices, no imbecile questions of

“how are you? what are you doing? how’s life treating you?”

 

no reason to pretend the world makes sense; you beg the

bluebird on the sill to take you away.

 

whiskey, cigarettes, music, and no living soul; nights are long,

frigid, crepuscular; superlative.

 

meeting people is for others, for those that

once dreamt of being firefighters, doctors, scientists, lawyers…

for people that saw movies and prayed for the popular life

they’d never attain. phone hasn’t rung in days,

the peace is glorious; employers don’t want me,

publishers abhor me, I have no friends.

 

just my whiskey, my cigarettes, and the good music.

every night might be the last—the sun always rises five

minutes before I pass out on the floor and the sanguine sunrays

fry a piece of my withering soul.

 

one day the ringing phone shall shatter the brilliant silence.

a sip, a drag, a new song; another silent

night of self-contemplation and for as long as

there’s some money in the drawer

 

I won’t need my phone to ring.

 

 

 

 

The Men in White Suits

 

always the same old story,

“they’re coming, they took the ones next door”.

“it’s alright, we’re still here”

“they’ll come for us, too”

“we’ll be here, waiting”

 

you never see the trouble with others being dragged away;

even when they float on the same shit pool,

following the same crooked path,

wishing that the yellow brick road leads to a better place.

 

tears of a century,

cries of pain from all four corners of the world;

pirates of the seven seas disembarked, their vessels wood for camping bonfires.

they took us all.

no one escapes, nothing remains hidden forever.

 

landscapes in the horizon,

new places to visit,

virgin territories to conquer, rape, abandon whilst the corpse is still warm.

 

tall mountains, deep oceans,

no signs of life.

nothingness;

a vast void, it feels all right.

 

a forest bursting into flames,

tall reddish waves demanding victims, devouring everything;

a seashore devastated, sharks ashore and their jaws snap in search of a last meal.

city on fire, singed ghouls gallop about, last breaths, final exasperated wails for help.

 

“they’re coming for us”

 

 

 

 

Homesick Blues

 

staring the foreign sky that once I sought,

seeing no blue dragons—only in vicious dreams of yesterland—

 

while hollow men approach, eager to offer packaged happiness

that won’t do shit. after years of nirvana-chasing,

empty promises and cold embraces have nothing to offer.

 

once upon a time,

I sought it all, sired the one monster that truly mattered.

 

faced by the creation, confronted by the madness,

 

once more rolling down the lifeless hills

 

forevermore to seek for that pair of eyes I’ll never replace.

 

fruitless moments, gawping at a grey sky that

produces no majestic feelings—the nightingales are all

lying in unrest in algid, shallow graves,

 

someone from afar is typing madly to create the

new unread masterpiece of the era.

it’s alright—someone walks down the street,

 

I recall the dark mornings of yesterday, the joggers in

their hot pants,

searching in the melting snow for the spike.

 

pointlessness—the one steady of my existence and

rummaging through the page

is the sole thing I’ve ever known.

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