As a supplement to our main issue of The Closed Eye Open, we have an ongoing feature called Maya’s Micros. As the name suggests, it will be curated by contributing editor Maya Highland and will exclusively feature short form writing.
Since it can be a long wait between issues, we’ve decided to keep the creativity rolling by focusing on the littlest form of creative writing—micros. Whether you consider them micro-poems or micro-fictions, they are welcome here…as long as each individual piece is 108 or fewer. (Why 108, you may ask? Have fun speculating…)
We like the idea of saying a lot in a small space–the complexity of self-expression in balance with an economy of language. And of course, since they are short, they can be enjoyed within a few moments–perhaps a line or phrase sticking with you to carry along for a while.
We will update Maya’s Micros in small “batches” a few times per month in between our full issues.
If you like what you see and would like to get e-mail updates, please e-mail us at theclosedeyeopen@gmail.com.
Click here to submit your micros for publication.
Also, you may follow us on Instagram @theclosedeyeopen.
hushed reveries
tell me the stories you keep
locked so tightly in your soul
dreamy, dazy, desperate, scarring
that deep earthly moon is
always too grounded to show
weakness, emotions, vulnerabilities
these complexities are much too heavy
because somewhere down the road
the light no longer banished the monsters
the way it used to when you were small
The Water Breaks
October 2021,
heavens open
rain comes down at last
to thunderous applause.
Kangaroo rats
look up in surprise.
Firefighters mop up
remaining fires
go back to their homes,
no longer emptying
rural grocery stores
of all their bottled water.
Meanwhile,
governments across the west
were getting rid of one million gallons
of firefighting foam,
citing health and environmental concerns.
Some in landfills
the rest burned.
No one knows the health effects
of incinerating these toxic chemicals
used to fight wildfires.
The effects of the fires
are known.
Fire snuffs out life,
but not the elements of the earth.
The forest is not destroyed.
The forest begins anew.
Alluvia
We are river dust,
undulating silt of sand, clay,
broken pieces of quartz.
Floods birth us. When the river
sloughs its lining and deposits
its burden across the American Bottom,
the river, potent mother, carries us
to term, saves us from cross-bedded
deltas, then dissolving salty seas.
Ikigai
There are at least two jobs:
the one they pay
you for and the one you earn
by stealth
The carbon and the diamond;
the solid protein and the sizzle:
fragrant and fragmentary;
the material transformations
of externally verified outputs
and outcomes, and every-
thing else invisible
and other indelible.
Global Warming
Use
every mode
to
allay doubt.
There
is no wrong
way
to message
“make
this better.”
Sara Gilbert recently earned her Ph.D. in Creative Writing and 19th Century Literature. After graduation, she chose to leave academia and pursue a career as part of a tech startup. She holds an MFA in long form fiction from American College Dublin in Ireland and an MA in literature from the University of Texas at San Antonio. Her writing has appeared in Fauxmoir, The Elevation Review, New Plains Review, Santa Clara Review, and others.
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Jennifer Handy explores sexuality, psychological trauma, mental illness, homelessness, severed family relationships, and environmental issues through fiction and poetry. Her fiction has been published in A Plate of Pandemic and MAI: Feminism & Visual Culture. Her poetry is forthcoming in the Nathaniel Hawthorne Review, and her poetry chapbook California Burning is forthcoming from Bottlecap Press in 2024.
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Richard Stimac has published a poetry book Bricolage (Spartan Press) and over forty poems in Michigan Quarterly Review, Faultline, december, and others. His flash fiction has been published in Blue Mountain, Good Life, Typescript, and nearly two dozen others. He is a fiction reader for The Maine Review.
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Julie Benesh is author of the poetry collection Initial Conditions and the chapbook About Time. She has been published in Tin House, Another Chicago Magazine, Florida Review, and many other places. She earned an MFA from The Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College, and she received an Illinois Arts Council Grant. She teaches writing craft workshops at the Newberry Library and has day jobs as a professor, department chair, and management consultant. She holds a PhD in human and organizational systems. Read more at juliebenesh.com.
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Rohan Buettel lives in Canberra, Australia. His haiku appear in various Australian and international journals (including Presence, Cattails, and The Heron’s Nest). His longer poetry appears in numerous journals, including The Closed Eye Open, The Good Life Review, Rappahannock Review, Penumbra Literary and Art Journal, Passengers Journal, Reed Magazine, Meniscus, and Quadrant.
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Seven Quintillion Particles
today has been sand
sifted from flower petals
pouring from my sandals
salted, dried out tears
teach us to number
no, God we can’t
count our small lives
like sand are granular
numbers lost among the
nebulous shifting of dunes
The Way I See It
there are two sides/to any argument;
one arm/in each sleeve.*
We are both trapped
in that damn sweater,
each with a fist
thrust through a worn
scratchy sleeve,
two heads stuck
in the same stretched out space.
* From “Control” by Rae Armantrout
The Rappahannock
Fingers deft like spiders legs
Pull and spool
Knot and weave
The slick silk cord on my first dance shawl
Lit by the reflection of a river that was once my mother
My mother’s mother
The womb ten generations of my mothers were ripped from
Smells like oysters and moss
Like heavy heat and earth
Katydids calling round spools of gnats
And the river knows her name as Mama
The river calls me come on home
Object of my new desire or: To be usurped:
A silvery light shines between each corner of the room, slowly filling each facet of the crystal glass stark in the middle of the table.
Unpolished in a pure white shine, hues of blue follow from the spiraling decorated alternation.
And in this way, we know that the streetlights are kind.
Kind to the shrinking road space between hotels,
Kind to the branches casting shadows on pitch dark pavement,
Kind in way mercy will not allow.
The Shapes of Things
I.
A damp evening absorbs.
The trees grab and lower the sky
They don’t waste an inch of daylight.
II.
Water is clear and fits in any shape
And therefore eternal.
III.
Each star is one thousand in one house
The light and the shape of a star are the same
Both are born when there is no room
For either the light or the star to move.
J. M. Sweeting is a Colorado native, a preschool teacher, and printmaker. She has a deep love for writing, reading multiple books at a time, venturing into the Rockies, and finding beauty in the small things. You can find her work in publications by Wingless Dreamer and Avalon Literary Review.
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Laurel Szymkowiak is a poet from Western Pennsylvania. Her work has appeared in Cagibi Literary Journal, Gyroscope Review, Twenty-two Twenty-eight, Pedestal Magazine, and Voices from the Attic, in addition to other publications. Her chapbook, What Choir of Reality Will Sing Today?, received Honorable Mention in the 2021 Cutbank Chapbook contest. She is a regular participant in Madwomen in the Attic writing workshops.
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Devon Borkowski is a writer, artist, and actor from the Rappahannock tribe of Virginia. She was raised in the New Jersey Pine Barrens, and graduated from Rutgers New Brunswick with a BFA in Visual Arts. Her poetry and short stories have appeared in The Dillydoun Review, The Closed Eye Open, and Room Magazine.
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Richard Levi is an independent songwriter from Michigan with a love of spoonerisms and nonplussing in equal portions, writing only of the comfortably mundane made visible.
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Zeryáb is a poet and visual artist from New York City. He is a Literature M.A. graduate from New York University, where he primarily studied modern poetry. His poems are available on the The Closed Eye Open.
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wasp nest
i spit out profanities
before i could whimper in
pain
cursed the home
i’d disturbed
and the white hot agony
of another being’s fear.
Cumulus
You really never know
what a person has been through —
that cute cumulus cloud in the sky?
She weighs over a million pounds
from all the tears
she’s holding inside.
After an Argument
Still stewing, I draw a bath
to soak my wounds,
good and hot, as hot as indignation.
Simmering in rumination,
my skin grows flushed
as the heat seeps through.
I steep in the still water
until my fists fall loose, float.
Gall slips from my grasp.
Outrage melts and dissolves,
salts the bath
like a purge of tears.
Bitterness lifts on wisps of steam.
Then, welling to the surface,
forgiveness.
The Healing Justifies the Wound
Graceless dodge,
Blood-flecked blade.
Damn the impassioned make mistakes.
Night stars exist without comment.
The moon conceals its face.
Calm, frigid, unsinkable.
Escape by the music of sibilant snow,
Soundtrack for a slow murder or a quick kill.
Someday the blood will stop,
Doesn’t beat oblivious to its future
But because of it.
Look into the mirror slightly cock-eyed.
Only a hurried glance thinking maybe to finish up
The way a painter puts down the brush,
Knows the muse is flailing.
Chest unzipped, feeling something frail
Has slithered out.
The Wisdom of the Hildegarde Hamster
There are three ways to master this maze:
1. Strive on with diligence towards the cheese.
(gnawing as necessary)
2. Beguilingly beckon the cheese to come to you.
3. Stay still until the walls all disappear.
Lauren Arienzale is a cat mom, doctoral student in clinical psychology, former organic farmer, and lifelong poet. She is the author of the independently published poetry collection, Mud Pie. Her work has also appeared in Scapegoat Review.
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Cara Sennott is a Los Angeles-based poet with degrees from Hofstra University and Columbia University Teachers College. Her work has been featured in numerous magazines and journals, including Into the Void, Cicada, and Words & Whispers, among others. In 2022, she was named a finalist in the City of Dublin Poets Take the Mic Splatter Festival and featured on the Viewless Wings poetry podcast. Cara is humbled and excited to share her words with the world. She can be found on Instagram @cspoet.
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Angie Hexum is a speech-language pathologist by trade. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Caesura, Gyroscope Review, and Burningword Literary Journal. She is a graduate of Swarthmore College and currently resides in Campbell, California where she enjoys hiking, cycling, and singing in a chorus.
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Chris D’Errico is a writer, musician, and visual artist whose work has appeared in various analog and digital mediums for the past 20+ years. He lives in Las Vegas, Nevada.
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Richard Krepski (RICHSKI) is retired from a 30-year career as research scientist and educator. He currently resides in the twilight zone between scientific rationality and poetic lunacy. His writing often deals with spiritual or supernatural themes. Recent stories appeared at the sites RavensPerch, Esoterica, and Uppagus, and poems have been published by Braided Way, The Closed Eye Open, and The Helix.
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