Open Ended Poems | Examples


List of Member Poems

OpEn EnDeD

Could l have been any dafter
Perhaps if we had first befriended
Making the effort always the graffter
But felt my freedoms she aprohened

What did l exspect some kind of bafda
As if she cared or simply pretended
At one time tears of joy and laughter
Though how that then quickly ended

How l longed for some happy after
But guess on her part never intended
What now seems like a closed chapter
As the relationship never trancended


Another abab wrote during pandemic

To Me, Today

what is a hope
if not the most desperately fervent
wish of a man— a dream so deeply
staining the edges of reality

a hope lies dormant in my belly
sleeping like a dragon curled
on the hoard of my desire
breath like smoke wafting 

past my eyes and up my spine
tinting my retinas; seeping into my brain
it fires my neutrons and my body says,
why not try again

the days spent in despair— the people
who jeer— the coffee stains and 
splashed puddles and fumbled papers—
i hope to hate them a little less tomorrow

in this suffocating swirling world
my hope-stained eyes see 
a new dawn a new day
a light at the end of my tunnel

even cold wind warms my face;
around me bustles with life,
sun seeping through the cracks
waking up my slumbering hope

today will be different. today will be good
today, a day i’m living for the first time
i have a hope, wide awake in my core
it tells me, it will all be okay

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 were the two naughtiest ones who scrambled the young girl's toys.


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

Premium Member Open Ended Circle

I sometimes wonder why our paths crossed 
I remember that first time 
as if it happened yesterday,
you rubbed me up the wrong way
and silence was my comeback… 

Few months down the line
You had your second try
I had this crazy notion 
you ruled my emotion
as if planned, 
we ended up parting ways
again…

Broken and bruised
but here we are again
strangers back then, 
strangers still now 
and yet you know the
most cherished elements of me
both scared, but with the need 
to take this further and see where it leads…

Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.

Get a Premium Membership
Turn off ads, get more exposure for your poetry, and get more features with a Premium Membership.
Book: Diverse Voices: The Poetry of Human Rights and the Pursuit of Peace