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.
Bad Mood in Holding Rm. 2
Despite intimidation it has its way.
Still, from a closet with a one-way
window, you scrutinize that self—
helpless, though reluctant to crack
the door, peel off into that space,
fisticuff that thief into submission,
some admission, since if you did,
there’d always be a next you, back
in the dark, seizing the emptied seat
opposing the pane of introspection.
Mountain Pass
When you’re angry,
I stop and look back,
but I can’t see you
for the mist rising
from the river. First,
you’re clear, then a ghost,
then nothing, gone.
I don’t know how to write about people
how to best capture souls like fireflies
in a little glass jar
blinking slowly
to glow into an unilluminated night
until air runs out and I let them go
or
tighten my grasp and cling to the little corpses
with no more secrets
to tell.
Clingstone
Are we each a stone spoiling alone
and its tender flesh that longs for caress —
just a peach that clings to expired dreams?
Is each a fallen spirit freed of the pit,
no suture or cheek, soul’s mystique,
being’s escape from its heart’s shape?
Or are we both, existence’s double troth,
The body unwhole without the soul,
impermanent and essence’s lingering scent?
A Vision of Love
A vision of love awoke Luz while the crescent moon was still the only light up in the backcountry above the Sweetwater Reservoir. The vision had lasted long enough to reach its natural conclusion. Luz would now have to awake from her long slumber, put one foot down on the ground, then the other. She would have to walk a few feet to the edge of the world. There, she would ponder a while before taking a giant leap of faith into the void that separated the world that had given rise to her vision of love and the world that remained to be transformed by that vision.
D. R. James, retired from nearly 40 years of teaching college writing, literature, and peace studies, lives with his psychotherapist wife in the woods near Saugatuck, Michigan. His latest of ten collections are Mobius Trip and Flip Requiem (Dos Madres Press, 2021, 2020).
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Ken Anderson’s The Goose Liver Anthology was recently released by Red Ogre Review Books and Liquid Raven Media. His first poetry book was The Intense Lover. Coffin Bell Journal nominated his poem “Blood Quartet” for the 2024 Best of the Net anthology. He was a finalist in the 2021 Saints and Sinners poetry contest. His novel Sea Change: An Example of the Pleasure Principle was a finalist for the Ferro-Grumley Award and an Independent Publisher Editor’s Choice. His novel Someone Bought the House on the Island was a finalist in the Independent Publisher Book Awards.
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Bethany Hale is a wife and homeschool mother of three living, writing, knitting, and baking in Lebanon, TN. Her work has appeared in Tiny Seed Literary Journal, Hyacinth Review, and SHIFT.
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Jason Boitnott is a lifetime rural Nebraskan, family man, twenty-seven-year educator, and livestock farmer. His poems can be found in recent issues of The Midwest Review, Wingless Dreamer, and Nebraska Poetry Society’s Poetry Rabble.
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Dominique Margolis is a non-native English speaker from France who now lives in California. She is known for her creative non-fiction, and she is published in magazines such as The Closed Eye Open and Pensive Journal : A Global Journal of Spirituality and the Arts. To read more of her stories, visit www.dominiquemargolis.com. You may also follow her @dominique_1234 on X.
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