Cover image: “Argos IV” by Corey S. Pressman
We’re pleased to announce The Closed Eye Open Issue IV. This collection is devoted to the exploration of consciousness, and the pieces that are featured in it continue to impress us as we look over them again and again. Not only do these poems, stories, essays, and artworks connect with this publication’s main theme, but they do so with remarkable craft, nuance, and depth.
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 IV. The full issue is available for online viewing with the link above.
In addition, you may send us a “tip jar” contribution to our PayPal account.
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.
Issue IV
“I confess I do not believe in time. I like to fold my magic carpet, after use, in such a way as to superimpose one part of the pattern upon another. Let visitors trip. And the highest enjoyment of timelessness―in a landscape selected at random―is when I stand among rare butterflies and their food plants. This is ecstasy, and behind the ecstasy is something else, which is hard to explain. It is like a momentary vacuum into which rushes all that I love. A sense of oneness with sun and stone. A thrill of gratitude to whom it may concern―to the contrapuntal genius of human fate or to tender ghosts humoring a lucky mortal.”
― Vladimir Nabokov, in Speak, Memory
Featured Selections
Victoria V
Esther Sadoff
Everything is ripe if you know how to search
Some crave the artichoke’s heart,
honey dew clear as rain.
I crave rind and bone,
a search for the grifting tongue.
I’ve never chosen a perfect melon,
a juicy tomato dreaming of sugared sun.
Don’t care if the skin is sallow,
the flesh all pulp and powder.
I like the cool ebb of pink to white,
the green of a latent bloom.
My mother scoops the red center
of each halved melon,
leaves them rocking.
Two upside hills to carve.
I don’t desire the sweet trickle,
the squelch of a yellow cob.
Give me the pale hard kernels
like unformed teeth,
my tongue slowly turning gold.
Julie Lloyd
Marianne Lyon
Passion
Praise wild passion
fiery longings raging songs unsung
free lurking hesitation curious compulsion
ignite the set-aside not-yet-concrete
Laud shamans magical spells
generals who inspire peace
priests who rouse devotion
children who believe they can fly
Applaud wild fever
that nudges us to rush to zesty gold mine
praise things we’ve always said we’d do
indulgences we never thought we would
Here’s to making dithering useless
here’s to kindling that which makes no sense
that which doesn’t rhyme fit the meter
what we cast threw away
Say no to parameters that suffocate
fear not dissonance consonance will resound
ecstatically resuscitate your arduous beacon
enter locked secret room of vibrancy
Congratulate passionate sun within your heart
it maybe love lust rage determination
envy heartache exhaustion joy
allow it to burn its way out
Fiona Hsu
Samara Landau
Unidentified
I have no mirror to know myself
Just the shadow
of my figure,
the reflection
I see in the window
on the outside of people’s homes.
The humans stare and point,
freezing their bodies so that I
freeze too. But I can see their
bellies rising and falling,
their lips
whispering,
asking the same question
I ask myself.
I relish in this moment.
The moment where I am unnameable.
Where all that matters,
is our eyes frozen on one another
Wondering more important
than knowing