Cover image: “Dawn” by Gerburg Garmann
Below, we have featured a small selection of work from Issue XI. 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.
Remember the earth whose skin you are:
red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth
brown earth, we are earth.
Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their
tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,
listen to them. They are alive poems.
Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the
origin of this universe.
Remember you are all people and all people
are you.
― Joy Harjo,
from “Remember”
Featured Selections
Katie Cloutte
Mary Clements Fisher
Wrong Way
wrong way—
no sign
points
the right way.
three-way stop
offers options.
desire burns,
urges me on.
a yield sign
gives me
permission—
no right,
no left,
straight on—
no wrong way
to find
my way home.
Emily Krill
Sandrine Letellier
Cliffside
tell me about the longing
how you scale beauty
with pretty pictures in your mind
tell me in-between sips of light
who’s worthy of your sunken city
I’ve dug my own hole
for a glimpse of the Pacific
and I wait hooked to a cliff
I wait lips trembling
limbs on the brink
tell me where my yearning
lands safely on its feet
Isabella Ronchetti
Kira Zimbalist
grayed out
i fantasize about meeting you / everything i know about you is from two years ago / my mom says you’re tragic / we’re talking on a clock / i still use comedic pausing / i don’t want to tell you why i left college / hell, i don’t want to tell you why i left you / i wish i could smoke / you never liked when i smoked / at the end of the day it was just a song / it was just one day / just one year / fifteen months / the prom / the roof / the tongue piercing, end of july / end of the driveway / every silver car in this part of new jersey is yours.
Tianyagenv Yan
