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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Poetryin the cowboy movies
he is a lone silhouette that moves through the dust smooth as a silver dollar there are always gunslingers jagged and dirty the whiskey…
PoetryBUTTER CHICKEN – De Rerum Entibus Caelestibus, 76.
76. CLOWNCHILD Look, Jack, you read my mind without permission?—made your bed, now sleep in it. I’m sick all this tiddlywinks. I’ve got a…
PoetryOnce the Sun Departs
Now come the bitter days when we seek an ardent animal to breath life into our flickering fires. There’s the foxy carmine flames of…
PoetryOld Spice
Dad would have turned ninety nine this year. Days spent with Dad in his later years always felt like we were cruising above the…
Poetry“Hello” to the Moon
this poem is a second-hand market toothbrush a kind of makeshift relation as if you were going to college in the 40’s to dodge…
PoetryThe Cycle
Used and abused Is that my motto The haunting words that continue to follow As I wander the depths This strange world of dating…
PoetryTo an Old Roommate
I just saw your photo on Instagram and fifty years have barely touched you. Sure, you have shorter hair, but you could be sitting…
PoetryWriter’s Block
Whatever touch I had is gone. Maybe I never had it. That would be better. One can’t throw away a non-belonging. Can’t chase after…
PoetryHallmark
Dad went out when I went to see Mom. He said he was going to celebrate some raise or bonus he and his co-workers…
Poetryalways you
always you i loved in english but there in the love of all things you, i love in spanish and parlez-vous too in a…
PoetryWhere a Neck Begins
I will meet a boy from Ethiopia, or Eritrea I do not know the distinctions well but guess it must be about religion or…
