by Steve Castro
He was a member of The Society of Friends, even though he had none. He wore a black fedora hat that used to belong to his blind father; he sported an unkempt black beard that complemented his black Buddhist robe. He walked around barefoot or so the story goes, because his robe completely covered his feet. The shadow that surrounded him was ominous like most bullets in mid-air tend to be. When he walked about, he carried a flash light at all times because he lived in a cabin with no electricity; he slept during the day and made his rounds during the night. He buried the dead when they were supposed to be buried, no earlier and no later. If his collection of shovels could talk, our protagonist would more than likely have ripped out their metal tongues. He was wiser than his speech; perhaps this was so because he was mute. The children were told by their elders when they misbehaved that our protagonist collected the hearts of evil children and fed them to his black cats. Our protagonist refused nothing; sadly, no one ever offered him anything; our protagonist was a lonely creature; he wore a silver cross that hung just below his Solar Plexus; it was always whispered around town that when the time came for our protagonist to meet the Lord, he would more than likely bury himself.
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STEVE CASTRO was born in San José, Costa Rica. Keen on exploratory research, the poet has walked on four continents: Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas. His poems have appeared in Grey Sparrow Journal, ASKEW, Chiricú, Andar21 (Galiza/ Galicia, Spain), Snow Jewel - a Grey Sparrow Press publication and Divine Dirt Quarterly. Poems are forthcoming in the April, 2011 issue of Underground Voices and in Cricket Online Review, Vol. 7, Number 1. A Flash Fiction piece can be found in the March, 2011 POWER issue of This Great Society.
