Cover image: “Door to the Moon” by Anna Martin
Thank you for your interest in The Closed Eye Open. We welcome you to our second issue. Since the first issue was released in June, we have curated a whole new selection of poetry, prose, and visual art from 40 excellent contributors. The writers and artists who appear in the issue really complement each other, and it was a great experience to collect these pieces and fit them together into a cohesive whole.
If you like what you see and would like to get e-mail updates, please e-mail us at theclosedeyeopen@gmail.com. Also, you may follow us on Instagram @theclosedeyeopen.
Below, we have featured a small selection of work from Issue II.
If you like what we do, please consider a “tip jar” contribution to our PayPal account or submitting your work to us via Submittable.
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.
M.S. Rooney
Is this the garden
where lilacs bloom as they wither,
are lilacs even when not?
where the joy in the bloom
does not vanish
when neither springtime
nor winter
is lost?
How I have longed
for this place of motion,
of bloom begetting bloom,
yet I still cannot see
what I most long to see
through the unfolding
soft lavender boughs –
how will she be me and not me?
will she dance on the grass of my grave?
or will she bring me lilacs
that bloom and wither and bloom?
Audrey Jackson
Erica Avey
Poems from Pedro
i
it crept
ii
taunted by submission,
hopeless sin love,
I smiled it awake.
iii
“almost done”
(^nope)
said the woman to the men
lifting the tufted couch
to her top floor
iv
he took so long to come
but now every capillary
red and pulsing
v
can’t imagine seeing you
without words I would
want it
vi
everything breathing
Christopher Paul Brown
Janis Harper
Another Way to Awaken
Dear One,
Yes, I agree. There does indeed seem to be this phenomenon occurring in the world right now, as much as I want to deny it. As you well know, I used to think that the human race doesn’t really evolve, only change. But now I’m not so sure. It does appear that people are waking up. More and more of them. All over the place.
It used to be there were some holy people scattered throughout the millennia, a special sacred few who knew “the truth.” As we know, these ones had masses of followers, compelling teachings, and secure places in human history. What’s occurring now is different—there are many more teachers who are enlightened, yes, but also there are just lots of folks walking around this way, who aren’t even teachers, who don’t even talk about being enlightened. Unless asked. Many of them got that way because of their teachers, of course. But now there are so many of them that some teachers hold retreats only for awake ones! This is happening on Vancouver Island, BC, of all places. It began there with a couple of enlightened folks who woke up others, and now there’s a bunch of realized Islanders!
And, my dear, these days it seems the teaching itself doesn’t even have to have an eastern flavour. It used to be that becoming enlightened, realized, liberated, whatever you want to call it, was the domain of eastern mysticism: think Buddhism, Hinduism, all those Indian gurus. Paramahansa Yogananda and Ramana Maharshi are among the more well known ones—as well as those who are no strangers to controversy, like Osho, formerly known as Rajneesh. Their teachings, non-dualist all, are distinctly eastern, and their devotees take on Sanskrit names as a means to shed their self-identified characters; they chant Sanskrit mantras on their mala beads and go to India and meditate in ashrams. So there’s that way to wake up, as you know.
Zimeng Wang
Matthew Pallamary
A Waking Dream
I am outside of time and space where the normal rules of perception no longer apply. Colors with hues that defy description bombard me, then unfold in multicolored geometric progressions that could be microcosmic quantum expressions, or unfolding galaxies. Within these realms I have lived as an insect devoured by still bigger insects, which have in turn been devoured by lizards and snakes with long ethereal stomachs that have passed me into non-rational dimensions that both amaze and terrify.
Outside of my physical body the frogs, birds, insects, jaguars, and other creatures of the Peruvian Amazon fill the night air with their calls, cries, twitters, and buzzes. For me there is no difference between the infinity expressing itself outside of me and the infinity that I soar through inside of me. It is all one. Outside of time and space a noise from deep in the jungle sounds as if it is right beside me, startling me. Sometimes I feel myself fully present and aware in two places at the same time, often in different times and dimensions.