five poems

by Eric Subpar

When Your Car Flies Off the Road

and into the river,

and your lungs fill with water,

you can't tell me there's not

a single moment

in all that violence

that doesn't feel like love.

Sideline Reporter

In retrospect,

the race was never close

for we had never learned to run,

how to take a punch.

Were far too photogenic as kids.

We are seated in a hotel room,

callousless yet

enraptured only by image.

The eroticism of heavy breathing,

shimmering torsos

wrapped in flowing ribbons;

finished lines,

buccal bruises,

christlike exertion.

It is now our turn to speak.

Perhaps we could ask something

of the victor, who, like the moon

is us only bigger.

Ace Detective

It's a waiting game, mostly.

When you were young

you assumed you'd feel it coming

but you don't feel anything

so you keep your eyes set on the horizon.

On clear days, you can see for miles.

On clear days, you learn the limits of your eyes

as you search for shadows in the distance.

For signs of divinity in the outline

of corn fields; artifacts of the infinite.

All points in relation to all points equally,

or maybe a miracle small enough to notice.

And when lunch comes, you cut

tornado test sirens through

sunday morning mystery programs 

I am detonating the bagman says

Put your hands where I can see them

Stick out your tongue. Wash it down.

Press your lips to God. Drop the package.

It is scripture read like future tense

but with an upper inflection.

The golden ewer? Sure, why not?

Wind whistles through its cracked walls

whipping palm fronds from the Land of Punt.

A bay window relief of ancient myrrh,

unending miles of corn,

fertile harvests that will end

someday but not today.

The music will play on

even when the lights go out.

Sleep comes disguised as a visitor

and often overstays his welcome,

pools like freon vapors at the base

of your tongue. Death is parked

across the street in an idling convertible

like an ace detective with their shoulder

in a sling.

Through black binoculars,

he deciphers the Abyssinian riddle,

but you aren't gonna

like the answer.

Keeping Distance from My Mother to Convince Myself I Can Survive her Death

I.

to tell you the truth, I couldn't

to tell you the difference

between leather and faux leather.

Death is only the next town over,

where my sister staples posters of Baby Yoda

to triplex walls and vomits down the side

of her bed.

Nature attempts Order

far more than it should

but Nature also fails

far more than it should

My wails couldn't fill a top sail

but they one day aspire to

to hold a calf like an infant and name her and never abandon her

to be shot in the face by a beautiful woman

to starve to death in a Prague tenement

to the shoegaze hum of Soviet scowls

to evaporate upon wisps of pain

real pain

productive pain

pain with trajectory

pain with purpose

II.

There is no heaven or hell

only distance from God.

Desire is a superposition.

Subatomic particles

with opposing spins

exist only with lust in the hearts

for other subatomic particles.

Often confused for gravitational pull,

it is a built-in safeguard of the universe.

against entropy

against finality

or so they say.

When you squeeze the lemon,

it is artifice that drips down your hand.

nothing exists in my presence

that would vanish in my absence

Prophet

he smells of bergamot

a scent you've only whispered

and never worn. he smells of

bergamot and maybe whiskey

but not how your Father smelled

of whiskey. he isn't going to

save you, man. he needs Violence;

wet sticky violence, shuddering

gasping violence. he wants his

body torn apart. sinew crushed

between your teeth.

he wants you to pierce his lungs

and shove his lifeless

body into your trunk. he wants

you to drive around for weeks.

he wants you to smell of bergamot

and whiskey and perhaps the

sweetness that is rot but not

how your Father smelled

of rot. he wants you to weep

for him and his stolid swollen

face, pressed into pleasure

like modeling clay.

he wants you to end him

to braid him into your hair

and wear him around your neck

he wants you

he wants you

he wants you

but he can never ask

that is his Upanishad

Photo of Eric Subpar

BIO: Eric Subpar (@EricSubpar) is a poet from Washington State whose work has appeared in Poetry Bus, Don’t Submit, and Hobart. His debut novel is forthcoming from Pig Roast Publishing.