Best Open Ended Poems


Premium Member Hey, That's My Money

Well, I see that Congress is proposin' another trillion dollar spree!
Those inept buffoons must think money grows upon a tree!
The treasury is crankin' out bales of twenty-dollar bills,
Doin' their part to cure (and inflate) the nation's many ills!

Funds were 'loaned' to help carmakers, now they're hollerin' fer more!
A ton of dough was 'loaned' to banks, but ain't nobody keepin' score!
Millions was designated to help home foreclosures to abate.
Where has my money gone?  I've seen minimal results to date!

Funds are proposed fer more sand fer the beaches of New Joisey,
And city officials want a water park out west in frigid Boise!
Frenzied lobbyists are scurryin' about fer a portion of the pork,
To build an emergency landin' strip on the Hudson in New York!

Money is probably well-spent fer roads, bridges and agin' sewers,
But spare me the cost of subsidizin' sports arenas and sozzled brewers.
Lack of foresight by the banks and politicians got us in this mess,
Now they cover their boondoggles with my money, nonetheless!

Hordes of politicians gleefully gather at the bottomless trough,
Elbowin' others fer largesse they claim will make us better off.
Is there no end to compensatory spendin' and open-ended lendin'?
Hey!  That's my money you fellers are so very inept at spendin'!

Robert L. Hinshaw, CMSgt, USAF, Retired
© All Rights Reserved
Categories: open ended, funny, political, money,
Form: Rhyme

Premium Member Please No Empty Room

Let not my heart become in my old age
"An empty room, cobwebbed, and comfortless"
But an open sunny porch, a welcome sage
A loving heart to those in distress

Let not my pain sabotage my soft heart
Let me remain a gentle, kind spirit
Writing a course of good 'pon my sea chart
Let love from heart's depths to God submit

Enjoining to You  oh Holy Spirit
Flow through me like a circuit open ended
This vessel delights in your benefits
Let the love seed grow with fastest speed

Let my heart not be controlled by body's pain
Fill my heart with Thy love 'til it can't contain  

"An empty room, cobwebbed, and comfortless" 
Direct quote from Edna St. Vincent Millay
It was in more than one of her works..
Categories: open ended, introspection, love,
Form: Sonnet

Premium Member My oblivious eye

Here on the cusp of all things, is where I succumb 
Ceding my stuff blindly, toward oblivion and none 
Unwilling to persevere, without a modicum of fun 
Listing in perpetual stasis, til the spasm’s undone 

And yet a god may save me, or a talisman of love 
Some prophet of euphoria, quelling ennui thereof 
Placing good tidings, into a universal equation 
Edifying eternity…..revealing its exact duration…..

Alas he speaks in riddles, and treads a mobius strip
Each cycle forming a twist, convoluting his trip
Determined I follow, my awareness in collapse 
Narrow-mindedly stumbling into mortality traps 

Now I sense the endgame, but decline to exalt 
Its a distortion, an abortion, a cataclysmic fault 
Chance meeting with a nihilist, yields positive results 
Unable to see past zero, he reveals nothing but cults

Here on the cusp of all things, is where I begun
A contorted brain-f*ck, had no choice but to come 
A demon of clarity, with an open ended measure 
One who gives to please, but prefers taking pleasure 

To believe for one moment, I’d live off a dying spark 
Only denies potential, when again life goes dark 
With more light to come, my sunglasses prepared 
Eternity’s not polarised, just infinitely layered 

If a blind man articulates, I’ve seen all this before
Screaming and convinced “I’m a seer at my core”
Could be he’s mistaken, or deluded with Déjà vu 
Begs his final question, “do I have a point of view”?
Categories: open ended, deep, life, perspective,
Form: Rhyme

Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry


The Scrapbook That I Can'T Throw Away

Still frames with dead eyed memories.
Magic marker’d promises;
open ended lies
that I can’t seem to forget.
No matter how far I bury this thing
inside my closet. You always find your 
way back, with a smile blooming
like a drunken rose. 
Fingers run to the edge
of our little world’s grave yard;
flipping the nights over..
Trying to find the picture;
 a moment that will sate 
the hunger of regret.
But I haven’t found it yet..
-James Kelley 2013 All rights reserved
Categories: open ended, deep, depression, desire, imagery,
Form: Free verse

My Dr Jekyll and His Mr Hyde

My tears are streaming
His eyes were beaming

My thoughts turn to past acts
His thoughts expose the cracks

My never-ending mental torture
His tools are put in order

My race is coming to an end
His race is at the first bend

My end is nigh
His begins on a high

My time here has ended
His time is open ended
Categories: open ended, allusion, anger, conflict, confusion,
Form: Free verse

Premium Member A Toast To Enchantment

To butterflies, bats, and midnight creatures,
To the brilliant, the dark, and things unseen.
To roses, wine, and satin dresses,
To a lucid child-like dream.

To the musty scent of ancient places,
To thoughts distilled on a fragile page,
To open-ended expectations, and
Eccentricities of a secret sage.

To the promise that lies in what is unfinished,
To the charm in the rawness of the fray,
To quests that lead to curious changes,
And rest that unbinds peace and play.
© Carol Mays  Create an image from this poem.
Categories: open ended, culture, fantasy, imagination, magic,
Form: Rhyme


Premium Member whispering birds through wind and light rain

My open-ended lines can convey more than one idea. Verse 3, middle line, ends in “I am.” I am both okay (today) & puddles on pavement. 

whispering birds through wind and light rain
no drama of wildly flapping wings & lightning
sweetness in covered tones, under umbrella

mine is red and white, candy-striped, mint
moment at the beach, ebbed into tall mug
heat of cream & coffee steam my a.m. lens

just peachy in mid-May, Mother’s Day past
don’t have to pretend to be okay today, I am
puddles on pavement, swirls of mud and moss

sounds of Spring tympanic, tinkling & symbolic
dull day, verdancy not at all bright, nice chill
still those tweets invite a kiss of heart, mind, soul

louder tweets, grow, not as mad as thunder, tow
not of under, nor rip; chorus of natural sequence
and consequence, harmonious, non-disclosure

biddies somewhere are moving their beaks
cheeky in gossiping, speaking curses not kisses
only man intentions to kill, imagines the hearse

be sweet, as proverbial pie; as best homemade honey
don’t terrify anyone with a storm of marmite words
lightly flap your wings to visit the poor in your dreams

thoughts cohabitate with nature, change moment
to moment, pierced and pecked synchronization
not numbed out by a blinding sheet of buffeting sound
Categories: open ended, morning, rain,
Form: Free verse

Premium Member Sun and Life Painting By Frida Kahlo 1947

A third eye, an open ended
topsy-turvy petal blowing gap,
a vaginal bore, is what I’ve become.
The bloom's long gone. The petals sucked
dry with nectar long ago lipped.

Every orifice repeats its plea
for knowing I, centered as the core of id.
I am the warmth burnt from fields of Iris’
and bays of daylilies, I have
flowered, soon to die.

A third I laughs at the absurdity, 
tendrils rooting on hair of silver gray,
aft holding to the ship of orbital she-
ray-rising to the celestial he.

First Published by Kind of a Hurricane Press 2013
Categories: open ended, art,
Form: Free verse

Premium Member Life's Path

It’s an open ended kind of life;
I know not where I go.
I hold you close inside my heart; 
I know you’re in the show.

I see behind me clear as day, 
but forward dark as night.
I know I love you come what may, 
but there is no foresight.

There is no map or plan ahead 
I’m strictly walking blind.
I have no future thoughts off hand; 
I hope you do not mind.

Sometimes I feel as if I’ll fall 
if I don’t turn to light.
But always know that you are there 
to catch me in mid flight.

So yes sometimes I am afraid 
I have no future plans.
But one thing is clear for all my life 
I’ve had your helping hands.
Categories: open ended, faith, life, future, me,
Form: Rhyme

Premium Member Only the Lonely, Butt Head

It has become painfully obvious that the only way to be heard
is to pay through the nose to be a lifetime nerd,
the way to be read in on this sight 
is to pay through the nose with disdain-unslight 
the drivel/dribble practicum that is profound in it's reading
is a joke, sickening jest this side of profane with often open ended
vocab blur bleeding from a finger up my butt countenance, hey I can be a pooret
yet as in all ways money that talks/squalks/walk the bills
up/on cuming and its resolute intercourse interims the slash good words for the  sentient freefall to the ills of my **** really mean/matters/ ratiorationale reticient/demeanor/demonstrative/destructive co cliff effervicient
sentient fecal savored poetic prickprofundity perversing on pisspoor gobetweens 
prepostured with sitesucking positiveprevelance performance preludes of lifetime member promises. GoThe usual suspects figure.
As GMarx once reveled in his Libra coutenance, "I would not want to belong to a any club that would have me as a member"! So be it as u quali/quasi/qualify your 
intermiserable inputs from lowly wantobe"poets"? Really, where do you get this chum encrusted fecal crap?? Love, beholding, misery, misertudes of life and sequesters of social misfitted miserdoms as to your innane, irrelevant, idiotic, interpretation of the serial social merits of human america and its poetic sense, and the globe as it is. I haplessly hope that in the humo state of written wrongs that u hate my stuff sur-plenty of desolution row and the good of for what it's worth in my non sequential birthday of sixty something nothings per social senses.
my money nevertalks, even on this lice level. D--aaamn. 
Never let it me be told that for me 
to be hold in an equal fake frequence with all of the hard-on Dr. Filth viagra statue status that I can speak from my borrowed loaned loins and be heard to a pro poem status dollar of signoff significance. 
I know I am being obtuse and indifferent as I don't want to play the $$$ poe whore game that would catapult me to the upper stratosphere of a poetic Zeus, Oden and the like in your eyes, as talent not matters. WTFE. But alas 
keep me in your prostratic/pussitic poetic poison prism, Dave. "I have always depended on the kindness of strangers". Otherwise,      FU. Keep the faith.
Categories: open ended, america, community, dedication, destiny,
Form: Free verse

Another Crossroad

Another crossroad.
Invalids weep when 
wearing another's
soiled diapers suddenly 
disappear.
In spite of the battered off-chance -
from a despondent interruption;
I'm the exposed exception.

Coarse fingers bleed.
My wheelchair spokes 
are hardly friendly.
I proudly bawl when no one 
can see me bow my head
amongst the company of
irreverent observers.

At rest
with this solemn disease -
the embrassing stench of inhumanity
forces me to open a 
newly glass-stained window.
I whisk swallowed past-killings
onto bent steel hangers.
Neatly there, they elegantly droop -
angled and uninteresting;
in a dank closet where 
falsified myths
and I 
silently hide.

Leukemia, I personally, thank you.
Mid wives laugh at me.
Jesters poke a crooked finger, also.
Kings, queens 
and jacks are left behind.
I chuckle, too - with an
unbridled Lucille Ball lament.
Four spaded-aces and a forgotten spittoon;
the uninviting hospice where we 
comfortably bed together
crocheting darned finales.

Say farewell.
Don't tell anyone.
Blood bleeds beyond 
frowned staled dales and

expiration is a personal moment.
Daddy and Mommy need to witness 
the definition of 
an unwarranted demise.

Open ended the 
Grimm fairy tale concludes,
without a finely tuned 
Aesop moral,
leashing the braille-exhausted
onto another muddied 

crossroad.
© John Heck  Create an image from this poem.
Categories: open ended, deathme,
Form: Free verse

Premium Member An Open-Ended Story

The Little Girl's Garden

  A finagle of young fairies with colors red, green, yellow, indigo, white and orange with glittering wings are playing in a garden very close to an old house door.  

  Two hours later, they saw a little girl coming out of the house, holding a rubber ducky on her way to the garden.  They are observing the girl as their playing is interrupted.  

  The little girl felt something strange about the garden because all of her toys that she left there two days ago are not scattered.  She recalled arranging them in line.  She just presumed it could be the strong winds that swayed them or a small animal may have played with her toys.  So she collected all her toys and arranged them in one line again.  She put her rubber ducky at the end of the line.  And then she left the garden.

  Four of the six fairies are staring at the other two -- giggling.  They are the ones who scrambled the young girl's toys.
Categories: open ended, girl,
Form: Prose

The Kentucky Hayseed - By Bob Atkinson

The Kentucky Hayseed

  - by Bob Atkinson

he looks a little confused
his mind cast in a fix
how can he concentrate on this
just a little bit

a jerky set of previews
float over and above
his articulated vision on
some confused state of fuss

he'd never seen a problem
like this in all his life
a complex set of jargon
not allowing mushy light

he chewed on a blade of grass
considering all possibilities there
just open ended reflex
on most of which, he didn't care

his mama told him something
when a child was he
he tried to focus reason
when allowed here to repeat

that never ending slogan
of truth and firm despair
carrying nothing in between
his inner and outer ears

the hayseed settled down to work
a tumor he could see
grabbed a scalpel from the nurse
and simply cut it free
Categories: open ended, cancer, discrimination, fun, health,
Form: Quatrain

Open Ended Poetry Contests

Please give us a topic, at least just a clue
I have no direction, don't know what to do
Do I scribe what I know, or write from the heart?
Or do I quote Shakespeare and try to sound smart?
A ballad, a sonnet, a three line haiku?
Or try to be clever, and try a senryu
Perhaps using penta, and maybe i-ambic?
Dactylic or pyrric, it's sending me manic
So next time a subject, please tell us ahead
And I'll write something different to be a blockhead
Categories: open ended, funny, humor, humorous, poems,
Form: Verse

The Recipe : Soul Soup

"The Recipe: Soul Soup"



Where do we go when we are lost? 

"Truth." she said, "Honesty?"
 
the response,
wasn't shallow, 
it was long winded

In short, the recipe for Love Souls read:

He said, “You’re funny”
She said, “You’re in the Loop”

He said, “You’re unsubstantiated”
She said, “I’m Heaven”

He said, “I am a believer”
She said, “I am your Soul Soup”

Story
Open-ended

Safe,
when you're unsubstantiated

(LadyLabyrinth / 2020)
Categories: open ended, love, magic, muse,
Form: Romanticism
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