How was it that in the time they walked you home
you forgot who you are?
To you, a happy dream,
but to the sober: lit nightmare.
The future is bright, and dull, and white, and dank.
It’d be the gray overtones that both assure and worry.
“Keep drinking the blue milk. You need the calcium, you
Little fuck. You need
A little fuck.”
You’ve got me dreaming of smudges and your
mouth is sour where we’ve bitten, shaken and barren,
scared o’ where I’ve gotten.
Everything is about the homilies and the homilies say nothing about you.
The meadows, O’, the meadows–
They took ...Read more
I wake up
remembering how I greeted my own
years ago.
"Hello.
"It's going to be
a good day."
The way I jumped from the bed to bed to play with the rest of my prayers,
"Hi's" exchanged with jollier inequivalence, pissing on my own, for I was once
The adventurous friend.
Turns, now, I’m just motions upon motions of
You-shouldn’t-have-made-its and why-are-you-still-heres.
I walked against the self-defeating vortex, inclinations, hallucinogens, morphine and morphine,
To reap more work hours so to burn, burn more pesos, burn, burn more dollars,
And to give winks for the fool-proof ...Read more
take my hand, stretched to the opening of this here earth.
Mouth of spiders
Spinning web, traps, camo, ammo,
falling dominos,
Speech patterns falter like granules of sand.
Like geyser, they rise, my mouth crawled by arachnids
Eight-legged freaks resembling AVs that haunted
my childhood. I love it here. I hate it here. I want to come home.
They feel like eons ago, I was strong, I could carry
an entire compound on my shoulders
like transporting cotton
in between fjords.
take my hand, emblazoned with runics, mental, unsophisticated
Errands and I am done with that I am done with.
Lis ...Read more
Are you coming together?
You cannot bind your pieces
by chance or unlink yourself
from the world. You have to move
with it, and roll. Roll with the
lottery of your birth.
Here, see, you cannot take the cards
nailed to my hands like I can't
take that which has been glued to your belly.
Have you not taken enough?
No beating could bring you
any more hurt than you've endured.
Could you tell me more about the procedure?
"No," she said.
Could you promise me if I leave, you'd still be accepting?
"No," she said.
Could you direct your potions to my insides, please.
I can no longer affo ...Read more
twenty four and your reward is
a tube down your throat, feeding you
trying to keep your weight double your age
You cry. Your hair's on the mattress. Pillows.
You cry. Lie to the left. It will hurt less.
My sweet child, and hands strapped to soft coffin
beautiful mind trapped in another world.
It is going to be years until you
find your art again, live your life again
rejecting all applicants because you
can no longer provide security
and how could you when you're not secure 'nough
heavy 'nough, hurting everyone around.
You lie in the rooftop, crying, thinking
about dead drop, wis ...Read more
Extend your hand to me.
Maybe. Maybe long enough.
Hold it out. Just a while longer.
I will reach back
...Eventually.
Foie gras terrine, bass and jazz and ocean waves.
You cannot ask the orchestra to cut their own tongue.
I had such high hopes for you,
Such high hopes.
Why, was it the right thing to let me down?
You are asking of me to cut my own tongue.
Such fuckin' high hopes and you let them drown.
I dream of time vacuums, empty husks, and crying caves,
oil portraits of men cruelled by time. Have thee forgotten?
They ran away from crushing heel
of dime, as have I.
The inabili ...Read more
Color my pictures,
Let me live out from your black and whites and tools that are limited, you can
bring me to life, unpetrified. I want to live as
blazing rain in lupine fields. Everyone I meet be manganese oxide.
Like Anthony in the white clouds,
Too young to depart,
Too pure for this world.
I choose to be remembered as I remember him,
with his scabs and swear words doused and dissolved
in purity of childlike soul.
Sky roses aren't real.
You have to paint the petals blue.
Good in theory? Theory's not enough. Make them real.
Are you vindictive like me? Open your palm. Give me two. ...Read more
Lovely, these metaphors you sing for your sadness
Like four blankets at night to keep your hypothermic heart from collapsing, contracting
Just like a sitcom but never funny
I see through your sunny, honey
I see through your morbid
Speak to me more about your profound nonsense
You and your posts
You and your profile pictures captioned with inspirational bullshit
Fake
You aren’t warm
But you can try– cry as you do
Throw your bullets at easy targets, now, now
Those people are designed to be taken down easy
Or at least,
In your head,
They are
You do not want to go back to the p ...Read more
I disassembled my body
and created a confessor
a parent in my head
Told her things
I weren't ready to share with the world yet
Held her hand, She took mine
as ether poured light into me
She was the practice dummy I bore my soul to
A subreddit dedicated to the unburrowing of my sins
Her ears were always pressed to my shriveled mouth
as teeth clinked to wail out despair
Stood there in silence
and allowed her to love me as I yearned to be loved
and failed
Why do you look like my mother?
Why do you sound like her
feel like her
Resemble her in every way but tangible
Why were you t ...Read more
Stop pouring your clattered hearts to me
I like them solid
We can both be drowning or we can take the door
What do you think this will give you?
Preserving shadows in a jar
All your money in high hopes leaving you penniless
This shit you're streaming on Hulu is a bore
We can't both be darkness. One has to be light.
Will it be you? Will you glimmer for me?
Fake your own purple rays and shun stormy clouds
All our savings in dry enviros leaving me two cents for a cigarette
You had this dream last night
of thinmen and humanoid tax collectors
And then, there was me ringing at your door ...Read more
by me, Ethan Lesley ?Release date : November 2017(Part 2 out 8)
Blue Milk is my second poetry collection entry for The Infinite Range. The free verses included deal with hospitalization trauma, PTSD, physical and mental health, and the painfully slow process of recovery; as well as promises of future health (both physical and mental), meaningful relationships and a sense of belonging.
table.table_milkcontent { width: 100%; color: #FFF !important; margin: 25px 0; font-weight: 200; }
table.table_milkcontent tr td { padding: 10px 0px 9px 30px; color: #FFF !important; height: 18px;}
...Read more
Poetry
Language exists
not to be policed,
but to have fun with as one lives
– Life In the Infinite Foreword
Ethan Lesley CC poetry. Click here for the poetry tag search.
td.optioners { -moz-transition: all ease 0.05s; -o-transition: all ease 0.05s; -ms-transition: all ease 0.05s; transition: all ease 0.05s; cursor: pointer; }
td.optioners:hover {background: #74cbc8 !important; color: #FFF !important; -webkit-transition: all ease 0.05s;}
1
2
3
4
5
GET PAPERBACK
The Incomplete Range
NOW AVAILABLE
Release date: September 2018
The Incomplete R ...Read more
Anarchy of the mind.
I wrote some welcome-to-my-blog remarks, which you can read here.