“Ubiquitous bovine” and other poems

Four Poems by Steve Castro

Ubiquitous bovine
 
The three Customer Only parking spaces were already taken up, so I had to park on the street. I can understand a couple of those spaces being taken up by vehicles, but the third parking spot being taken up by an air conditioning unit was beyond strange. We entered the antique shop and went about looking at various curiosities. “That's a beautiful bird,” I told my mother. “That's a cow,” she replied. It was a beautiful painting nonetheless, I thought. I then saw myriad of books for one dollar each at booth #318. I bought five of them. When we walked out of the antique shop, I had my five crime and science fiction novels in tow when I saw an air conditioning unit backing out of the parking space I coveted. I wonder where it's going?, I thought as my mom suddenly said, “Look, a cow is leaving that parking space you so loved.” 

Conejo y Gallo

My roommate placed the dead rabbit on the marble table.
He then poured gasoline on the conejo and was about to light it on fire,
when our landlord suddenly materialized right in front of us.
“Don't you ever knock?” I asked.
“Who needs to knock when I have the master key,” he replied.
“How can we help you?” I asked.
“Rent is due today, plus that rabbit belongs to me.”
“You stole our prized rooster,” my roommate replied.
The landlord took a miniature red rooster out of his coat pocket,
and set it on the marble table.
“Should I pour gasoline on el gallito and set it on fire?” the landlord asked.
“You should drown it in the bathtub,” the dead rabbit suggested.
The three humans nodded in agreement.  
The rabbit smiled. The rooster wept. 

Alegria por todo lado
 
I prefer happy poems
like a corpse wearing a
Smile, it’s Contagious t-shirt.
 
A body crawling with ants
is most likely made out of sugar.
A body made out of sugar
can be easily disposed of at a coffee shop
without anyone being the wiser.
 
I once met a vegetarian
with a drawer full of steak knives
and a fridge full of bison steaks.
“Temptation is a dish best served often,” I said.
“Not today Satan,” the vegetarian replied.
“Amen,” I said in agreement.
I then offered him a sugar cube,
which he placed under his tongue.
In turn, he offered me a bison steak,
which made me so incredibly happy
because we surrealist poets know that bison
are the happiest of God’s earthly creatures. 

L & S
 
“Your name is Stephen? I thought your name was Adrian.”
 
“Adrian is my liquid name,” I said.
 
Complete silence like a room full of dead mannequins.
The person left the room without saying another word.
 
Blood is my favorite liquid. Mainly because I see it
so often in my favorite painting at the local museum.
 
Everyone who has called me Adrian has drowned. 
My birth name was given to me by God, 
but not in the way you think, but in the way God thinks. 
 
I once met an old man with a very solid handshake. 
“He must have an incredible solid name,” I thought. 
“Your name wouldn't happen to be Peter?” I asked.
He walked away without saying a word, denying me an answer. 

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Steve Castro was born in San José, Costa Rica in 1977. He resides in Evansville, Indiana. He holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing (Poetry) from The American University in Washington, D.C. His debut poetry collection, Blue Whale Phenomena, was published by Otis Books (Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles, CA) in 2019. A number of his online publications can be found on linktr.ee/ThePoetryEngineer.

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