Poetry
Read contemporary poems selected by Open Arts Forum’s editors, including visual poetry and work from the archive. Follow each poet’s name to discover more of their published work, or hear contributors in our author recordings. Writers considering OAF can read the poetry submission guidelines.
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PoetryI Was Meant For More
I was meant for more. Teetering on the edge of grief and hope, brushing tears from cold cheeks. “I wasn’t a problem, I was…
PoetryAfter the wedding party
In the mouse-creak hours of a country inn night the harvest moon lit up a painting on the flaky wall - a cottage, a…
PoetryMuerta
If you have died, …all the leaves will fall in my breast, it will rain on my soul night and day, the snow will…
PoetryMyth
“Let’s make up a story Of how we arrived here.” -Adam Clay Maybe we are the flinty point of an arrow God shot from…
PoetryWeeds
Father hated weeds He swooped on them in the fields, slicing off purple heads, thumping a grubber into the hard ground to ferret out the…
PoetryIn the Vein
Vancomycin and Ceftriaxone drip from bags Into the PICC lines of patients Who rest in mismatched recliners. This room reserved for victims of infectious…
PoetryHell isn’t empty
Hell isn't empty it’s just off kilter. The schemers and the treacherous marginalized to make room for the brutal, the vulgar and the blood-simple.…
PoetryCounting the Homeless
Like a crumpled paper bag, she lay in the bushes behind the gas station. We noticed her because of a shoe-less foot glowing in…
PoetryGathering Leaves
Gathering myself together, weathering the forecast in advance, stocking up on provisions, preparing for the turbulent, which is how the models align – a…
PoetryBEER FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY!
this isn’t a divey place you and your family can come here and get your beer in a safe environment of gambling and drunken…
PoetryBUTTER CHICKEN – De Rerum Entibus Caelestibus, 94.
94. YES She’s going to. She woke up with the clear decision in her mind at 5 a.m. and woke me up to let…
PoetryMetamorphosis
The tinier the drudge the dearer must be the shackle. The circus flea drawing the chariot walking the tightrope cranking the carousel must toil…