Cover image: “Currently He is Paid Under the Table” by Robin Young
Below, we have featured a small selection of work from Issue IX. The full issue is available for online viewing with the link above.
In addition, you may offer a “tip jar” contribution to our PayPal account. All support is appreciated, as it helps keep this project spiraling out into the unknown.
If you like what you see in the issue, you may also want to check out our ongoing Maya’s Micros feature. As the name suggests, it will be curated by contributing editor Maya Highland and will exclusively feature micro-poetry and micro-fiction pieces.
If you are a writer or artist and want to be considered for upcoming issues, see our Submittable page for the current submissions that are available, including an entry for the cover and artist feature of our next issue.
E-mail us at theclosedeyeopen@gmail.com. Follow us on Instagram @theclosedeyeopen.
“[The Laguna word for ‘fragile’] was filled with the intricacies of a continuing process, and with a strength inherent in spider webs woven across paths through sand hills where early in the morning the sun becomes entangled in each filament of web. It took a long time to explain the fragility and intricacy because no word exists alone, and the reason for choosing each word has to be explained with a story about why it must be said this certain way. That was the responsibility that went with being human . . . the story behind each word must be told so there could be no mistake in the meaning of what had been said; and this demanded great patience and love.”
― Leslie Marmon Silko, in Ceremony
Featured Selections
Sunny Redmond
Heather Sager
a comet (don’t worry baby)
shine in sun. swarm. walk. fall. drip tears on the path. absorb hurt. scratch my tender cheek. circle. be silenced. wail. paint bronze colors. anger skies. becalm. fly backward. blue the sky. wend the waters. willow the trees.
Lynne Mizera
Raina Allen
homecoming
the cemetery is scattered
with seeds not yet ripened,
and we trample on them like weeds
to find those we watered.
somebody’s daughter,
she is cold and withered,
but the warm-blooded folks
take pictures of fresh-fallen snow.
summer’s rejoicing
is sticky heat and cherry wine
splattered on childhood bedsheets —
stains only i know.
uneven terrain is remembered
by the mole hills we have tripped upon,
but the wanderers are blind to footprints.
the world looks different
through outdated eyeglass lenses —
to the outsider,
my eyes are still the same shade of blue.
K.G. Ricci
Kate Strong Stadt
1979. Phantom der nacht
There must always be a reason
to go through the woods.
There must always be
woods to go through.
There must always be two
shapes in opposition,
the shape of whatever you fear losing
and whatever you fear you will find.
There must always be symbols
of something wrong.
Commonly a knife, a mirror,
a box that may be empty. Or not.
There must always be a journey back.
It does not matter what the ending is.
That there is a journey,
two shapes in opposition
that cannot be kept apart,
that they will meet,
that you may discover
their similitude.
Linda Briskin
