Vote

1
She Speaks
she speaks to you
languid language
that says nothing
absolutely nothing

you hear a fainéant girl
with fingers unfit
and unwilling

you hear her from far below
she seems to be a tower
of nothing
absolutely nothing

but somehow still hovering
your friable tongue
inept and unwilling

her remarks strike you
lashing and leaving scars

then soothing
and healing completely

better when she’s silent
supplicating you
with her admirable smile.

Kelly Curiel
February 26, 2008
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2
El Fondo Que No Se Ve

How the weather affects the city
The streets and the availability of the crossing
You’re a rustling indication
Softly sneaking through the thread
While I retreat into another sound, disengaging the immaculate

How the weather denotes certain immunity
Stirring up the lost directions of the air
You are slipping above below and beneath
Yet mostly in between
I like you there

I have settled into winter persuasion
Cover up to shelter the apprehensive skin
This weather is breaching these infinite fabrics
Ample and matted; heavy on top
Pressing the line that borders admittance
Still the tingling undercurrents find a way in

How the weather flushes sidewalks and highways
Lifting back upwards as the translucent yellow
Dilutes the gray
You are commotion in the middle, surrounded by my ribs
The softer the encounter, the smoother the reaction is
You could have transferred in from a suggestive gesture
Like a whirling premonition that precipitation may occur
However, you unearthed a much better way
Replacing the interim with one that would stay.

Kelly Curiel
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3
Invisible

I am invisible again
I don’t know how it happened
But it happened

Not only am I unable to be seen
But heard and felt
Even the breath of me
Is not recycled by the tree

The dust pays no heed
The ground does not bend
The rain falls right through me
I am invisible again

I hang the words
From my fingers like a sticky web
Forcing them into your drums
They go back where they came from
Unheard; unseen
Right back into me

I woke up invisible again
I don’t know if I dream it true
But once more, I am invisible to you.

Kelly Curiel

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4
Fingers a bit numb, from the wasted day’s cold wind
Fits into his pockets, sends a message back to him
If one could learn compassion, where there was a lacking deep within
Scrutiny was missing, a followed sigh at the whipping trim
Solace in places warmer where the hallow cold could find a friend.

Blankness in the way he focused, far from the eyes, a minute away from expression
Cozy into security, by unreleased apparitions in the hand he held the others
If one could possibly readapt to her mysterious unbalanced need for suggestion
Or lose oneself in the whirlwind of empathy by having shared the damage
He was never lost. He could never find his way. He would never learn the lesson.

Kelly Curiel
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5
Reign

When you reign it is obvious
I relinquish my arraignment to my imperviousness
And submerge my feet in a mud like street
Sink with pleasure into defeat.

I tiptoe beside Your advanced northern wing
An area where an entrance is few and far between
Yet towards the center I took a swing
Could You have passed a faster curve?
I bent farther forward to reach the serve
(In the awkward silence I used to miss),

And there You were
Towering in Your quiet mix
Refraining from any remaining iniquitous characteristics
A downfall would only interrupt the fix
You keep inside your buried fists

When You reign it is obvious.

Kelly Curiel
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6
Lost Hours
We were alone for a while
your room enwrapping and entrancing
my face was a softer place
for you to lay your mouth
and I bent in the temperature
of a lavishly positioned soliloquy
spinning me in the middle
of what could only be
the beginning
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7
Garden
he borrows her violence
bending and twisting
around his wrists
tangling the words he trips over
asking her to escape from this
the vines blossom rapidly
their stalks at the roots thicker than maple
reaching and thinning out
in an effervescent attempt for humanity
younger versions are born
and spread from amidst their waists
effortless spawning in a timeless whirl
his seconds bear upon her hours
leaves spreading brown mist
carpeting the sodden ground
replacing serenity with trouble
in a mix of limbs and branches
he drops his borrowed vigor
undoing time like a hundred desert summers
withering beneath a violent thousand degrees
the ground recalls what had been released
her garden dies in the time it took her to breathe
she holds the dirt like a lover's embrace
he tells her again to try to escape.

Kelly Curiel