Maya's Micros
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.
February 2023
Batch 048: 02/28/23
Susan Michele Coronel
the alphabet of loss
spells tire tracks wolves
eyelashes fluttering to sleep
the number six & a skeleton key
obsidian night returns: i gather
stories for the homecoming
metal brackets are blasted
imprinted on pillows what is denser
than dust in dark hair carpets
of moss clouds that glow evergreen?
memories are scraped into sandlots
where the playground returns
to stillness & hush
empty sleeves gather dirt & rocks
i make my mark before i leave
inscribe me into the world
Jack Westmore
Vigo
In this city, lovers
know
how to rise from the dead.
I heard once
that to clean a wound
it must be broken into, like
a tomb.
The cafes and bars
are very shut, their chairs stacked
politely on the sidewalk.
It is as if summer
does not
know these streets.
I wonder if I could be killed
for wanting to love.
We stop at a bar and order
drinks in tall glasses.
The gutters seethe,
picked at by rats.
It is past noon, and
shade has come out to play.
Yvonne Morris
Shelling Poems
I unwrap poems filled with birds, bees, trees—
so much industrious nature as if no civilization
ever tendered city upon city.
Here lies the old gift shop hanging
broken over the creek. Shelves stacked
for dead loves, ceaseless walking—odes
in which no dogs wag their tails
at the weathered gate. But tales told,
the morning rises again in rose,
the graveyard shift notes while driving home.
Jeweled words intended to save our faith
stare from the page in obstinate pain.
And every day, someone new squats near
the intersection, bearing a name.
Kollin Kennedy
The Meditative Rose
Upon one rose of one rose of one rose,
There sit one rose that aboves the known ground,
That carries meditation for its rose
To reprieve the punishment of man’s mind
From insanes that work to material
Of confused & known fact to no nature.
And upon this rose, all reds are mine
Within the rose’s mediative rose,
To relieve me of my willowing heart
That contents at nothing but in its grief.
From this work, I’m given off to the rose:
Made to myself as I’m made to pose,
But I hope as the rose continues rose
More are made eye to this meditative rose.
R. Olaf Erich
Linier Moment
They that have gone
before me
are beyond me and
walk behind me.
It is thee I
in the center
we seek.
Contributor Information
Susan Michele Coronel lives in New York City. Her poems have appeared in publications including Spillway 29, TAB Journal, The Inflectionist Review, Gyroscope Review, Prometheus Dreaming, Redivider, and One Art. In 2021 one of her poems was runner-up for the Beacon Street Poetry Prize, and another was a finalist in the Millennium Writing Awards. She has received two Pushcart nominations. Her first full-length poetry manuscript was a finalist for Harbor Edition’s 2021 Laureate Prize.
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Jack Westmore is a poet and software engineer living in London, UK. He has previously had work published in The Fourth River, and he is a recipient of the Tower Poetry Competition (second place). Poets who have inspired his work include, amongst others, Phillip Larkin, Richie Hofmann, Joanna Klink, Jorie Graham, Ocean Vuong, kari edwards, and Tomas Tranströmer. He has never visited the city of Vigo.
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Yvonne Morris has been published in a variety of journals, including The Galway Review, The Santa Clara Review, The Write Launch, Cathexis Northwest Press, Wild Roof Journal, and elsewhere. Her newest chapbook is Busy Being Eve (Bass Clef Books, 2022).
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Kollin Kennedy is an emerging writer in the Dallas area who graduated from the University of North Texas with his Bachelor’s in Creative Writing. He has self-published a few collection of poetry and is currently working on a work of prose. He has also published his poems in Wingless Dreamer and The Decadent Review, and you can find more of his poems on his Instagram @kollinkennedy_
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R. Olaf Erich is a German-born American poet, author, and writer from the mid-western part of the United States. He is a 12-year veteran of the USMC, where he proudly and honorably served. He has degrees in Religious Studies and Environmental Ethics. R. Olaf Erich has been writing for decades and was first published in 1977. Since then he has had several dozen poems published by generous publishers such as The Raven’s Perch, Wingless Dreamer, Eber & Wein Publishers, and The Closed Eye Open.
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February 2023
Batch 047: 02/07/23
Ellen June Wright
Clifton Upon Rising
I woke this morning
to the sound of Lucille reading—
recalling her beloved mother.
I thought my mother is not like hers.
Love’s so complicated
between us. I scrounge for it
the way children dig
with shovels at the beach
looking for crabs, snails,
shells and minor treasures
then abandon them
to build sandcastles.
Solas
to become obsessed
with the persona
of strangers
or musicians or poets,
or the artifice of actors
to drift from the mainland
to walk
in a field under the stars
unafraid
Joanne Alfano
Timeless
so many years and time and moons
find a way to me.
I am them—
they are me, now
all I know
whenever I think I know
is that the sum of knowing
is not knowledge but
living not breathing but
singing not walking but
dancing worlds at my feet
an infinity of song and
life ever present ever new
now here me
Juliette Roberts
where did you want to go?
you finally reached the mountains you’d always wanted to climb,
but did not see them, did wander past them.
and only when you looked back did you see the great wall,
the monster lying in your past, and you stood
on the dry lifeless shore, the wind struggling, nothing
to move through. just the sound
of the gray waves
of the sand
the sky,
the silence.
chapel under a dark sky
nothing to the silence could be black church
under Christmas Eve. at midnight
one bell to dampen, then to
hush evil that comes
clapping its teeth.
then out of the snow you come then
something you feel is good, that
good is good is good.
you can’t name it yet you’re
still too young.
Kasey Jones Ross
Hop Clovers and Thimbleweed All Along the I-73
Red n’ blue sneakers hand-painted guzzle $8 gas and push 80 afterhours.
To match it, acrylic stained fingers choke seatbelts, side handles, black leather: ours
Sunset carves holy shards into callouses, freckles, melanin, skin.
Box braids lit aflame during the voice-shattering: ours.
Chipped keratin spear tips grip, grab, flip over, flip off fuck off flip underneath denim thighs pushing 95.
A silence steeped in the blackgreen I-73 weeds: ours.
Why aren’t we talking?
What’s there to talk about? Weather? Wildflowers?
Withered jack-in-the-pulpit: a hoodie pulled overhead
Faces shaded in swamp rose overtones: ours
Whose slice of silence mangles fiercest?
Who among us is to be the bigger coward?
Doug Bootes
Refrigerator Drawing Ekphrastic
for John Prine
Over a crudely drawn landscape,
gods loom in distress,
made in our image —
the missing time.
Reach stick figure hands
for thanksgiving clouds,
or charlotte’s web,
pals ’til the massacre begins,
Great rain, refrain.
Cornflakes cuss
loud as burnt bacon,
spilt milk prayers
cryin’ on the tile,
stains in the sink
refusin’ to erase,
watch rivers run dry
washin’ tears for themselves,
Great rain, great rain.
Watch headlights brush
Picassos on the wall,
floor creaks alcohol crickets
Sittin’ on the porch out front,
I brought the cups tonight,
you bring the ice.
Contributor Information
Ellen June Wright is a retired English teacher who consulted on guides for three PBS poetry series. Her work was selected as The Missouri Review’s Poem of the Week in June 2021, and she is a Cave Canem and Hurston/Wright alumna. She received 2021 and 2022 Pushcart Prize nominations.
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Joanne Alfano lives in Lakeland, Florida, where she enjoys being with family, writing, reading, and watching old movies. She has published two poetry collections: Soul Tracks (2020) and Dreams Drumbeats Heartbeats (2022). Several anthologies and journals have published her poems including the recent 10th Anniversary Bards Against Hunger anthology.
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Juliette Roberts is a film student at The University of Texas at Austin, and a literary reader for the UT art magazine The Apricity.
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Kasey Jones Ross graduated from the University of Texas at Dallas with a degree in Molecular Biology and writes from Houston, Texas.
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Doug Bootes lives and writes in New Mexico, teaching creative writing at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe. His work has appeared in Poetry Northwest, On the Run Contemporary Flash Fiction, World Literature Today, and many other publications.
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January 2023
Batch 046: 01/12/23
S. Marie Watkins
Clubhouse
Aly and I rolled a wheelbarrow
to my house, plywood strips
sticking out the sides.
Huffing and grunting,
we squeezed through the gate
and into the grass. We dragged the pieces
up the hill to the corner of my backyard.
Hammer, hammer — strike and sweat,
we built our house.
Storm clouds carried in rain
and whistled through Sequoias.
We hunkered within our wall-less home
and cowered below
the screen door roof — soaked.
Chris Duffy
Theologians and Weathermen
for Cathy
The sun was near all but present
Behind a surging sea
Of dark shadowy cloud
Which seemed to be tumbling
As freely as tumbleweed
Across a grumbling and alive sky.
No ship or swan or Looney Tunes character
To decide the semblance
Of a soft white cloud upon
No face of God. Still
They say tomorrow
Will be sunny skies.
Adela M. Brito
Hot as Blue Blazes
I learn this phrase when temps rise to a hundred.
Two days later, alarms screech and screams erupt.
I blink to erase what my eyes have just seen.
On the balcony, steamy heat reaches me, confirming the horror.
In unison with shouts, flames grow,
demons descend, melt panels, blow out panes.
Wailing engines come, and snaky hoses pound.
A towering crane rains on stubborn sparks that sprout
in the suffocating dark.
Hope is swiftly extinguished on an interminable night
that was hot as blue blazes.
Julian Clini
A.I. Art Gallery
Perfect at a distance,
Contours aping expectation,
Swirling visions discerned
Like wrinkles in the brain,
Smothered dark, resplendent.
These paintings
Sing to me
With ethereal voices,
Choruses wrung from drops
Falling through the cracks of a nightmare
Against a flat, obsidian lake.
Peer into the pool,
Mirror of a future
Projected like a thought that lost its train,
A locomotive
Whistling past its final stop,
Rolling forever onward,
Parties roaring
With no one left on board.
David Osgood
A Lighthouse for Lost Ships
There is a place we go when no one is looking—underneath the train tracks and below the earth–where we congregate like burrowed animals to share the brutality of life. When the railcars pass overhead, the vibrations scuttle around us like pinball electricity. A makeshift chandelier hangs from dirt; the candle inside it is lit and re-lit until fingertips are ashen. If we say these words above ground, it will be the end of us. Down here, we whisper with guarded intent. We keep a lighthouse for lost ships, while up there it is all jagged rocks and swells.
Contributor Information
S. Marie Watkins is a writer from Lake Tahoe, California. They have been featured in the Oakland Arts Review, Oddball Magazine, and Living in the Mountains Anthology. They were the poetry winner of the 2022 Mental Health Awareness Writing Contest in Please See Me Lit Mag. If they are not sitting in front of their laptop, they can be found within the aisles of a library or along a path within the Tahoe Basin National Forest.
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Chris Duffy resides in northern NJ. His poems have been included in Canary, Pensive: A Global Journal of Spirituality and the Arts, Paterson Literary Review, Snapdragon: A Journal of Art and Healing, Tiny Seed Journal, The Halcyone, and several anthologies.
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Adela M. Brito has published short stories in The Acentos Review, Hieroglyph, Litbreak Magazine, and Moko Magazine, and her nonfiction, arts reviews, and poetry have appeared in Adelaide Literary Magazine, All About Jazz, Counterculture UK, Storyboard Memphis, and Underwood. She holds an MFA in fiction from the University of Memphis.
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Julian Clini is an accidental vagabond of mixed Italian and Canadian heritage who grew up in China (et al.) and studied in the Netherlands. His essay/poem hybrid, “Forest Walk Thought Sequence,” appears in Issue 11 of Wild Roof Journal, while his satirical short story, “Cretaceous, bro.” appears in Issue 1 of F(r)iction Magazine under the pseudonym Emile Gregory. He currently lives in Toulouse, France.
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David Osgood is a short story writer who believes life to be an evolution of diverse connections, and his writing is a conduit. Website: davidsosgood.com/publications
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December 2022
Batch 045: 12/16/22
Nicole Farmer
Scribe
I like sitting at the window and daydreaming. I like gazing out and imagining that there are ideas drifting through the open window and down my arm into the pen I am holding and some of them end up written down in my notebook and some of them drift past me out the other window or out the front porch door. I am simply a scribe translating ideas on the wind. Without the view I have no muse.
Ipsheeta Furtado
Mishti dahi
For full exoneration from one’s own self:
The oven light is on
Swirl in the voices from underneath your skin
Whip in a select few from the wind
Shake in sugar crystals of fond memories
The oven light is on
Pour out the mixture into a contained container
Spread out until there are no holes or bubbles that might pop
Keep out any disruption with a foil cover
The oven light is on
Allow the day to pass. Take a walk or a nap. Hug something, anything.
The oven light is on
In a baby-food-sized, metal catori, serve a heap of the baked concoction. Feel the transformed feed.
F. Highland
Esme DeVault
Wednesday
on Wednesday
I notice
a black-eyed Susan
deep in the woods
alone
among the thorny shrubs.
Andy Tasker
Thoughts on grief
The abyss of loss, the mind in free fall,
The expectation of being awakened from a dream.
They say it comes in stages, a humane act
By an evil spirit, breaking itself down into
Manageable chunks.
It’s bullshit of course.
The bereaved are swimmers in a black sea.
Grief is the weight wrapped around their torsos,
Pulling them under the surface.
The strong resist and stay afloat, but they rarely
Make it to the shore. They only
Forget that they are in the water.
Contributor Information
Nicole Farmer is a writer and teacher living in Asheville, NC. Her poems have been published in The Closed Eye Open, Poetry South, The Amistad, Quillkeepers Press, Capsule Stories, Haunted Waters Press, Sheepshead Review, Roadrunner Review, Wild Roof Journal, Bacopa Literary Review, Great Smokies Review, Kakalak Review, 86 Logic, Wingless Dreamer, Inlandia Review, Levitate, In Parentheses, and others. Nicole was awarded the First Prize in Prose Poetry from the Bacopa Literary Review in 2020. Her chapbook, “Wet Underbelly Wind” was published in November 2022 by Finishing Line Press. Way back in the 90’s she graduated from The Juilliard School of Drama. Website: nicolefarmerpoetry.com
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Ipsheeta Furtado serves on the Board of Directors for the Bay Area’s Shotgun Players, writes with PlaygroundSF’s Writers Pool, and recently joined Voices of Our Nations Arts (VONA) Foundation and SF Writers Grotto Rooted & Written alumni. Ipsheeta holds a B.S. in Engineering Physics from UC Berkeley and prefers tea over coffee.
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F. Highland’s novels Ghost Eater and Night Falls on Damascus are published by St. Martin’s Press. Recent fiction published can be found at allthesins (UK), Eclectica, Mystery Weekly, and Gargoyle. Website: highlandwordsmith.net
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Esme DeVault is a poet, attorney, and non-fiction writer living in Barrington, Rhode Island with her husband and son. Her poetry has appeared in Motherscope, Spadina Literary Review, Streetlight Magazine, Solum Literary Journal, Kissing Dynamite, and numerous other publications. She is a former English teacher and academic reference librarian and has been running a book group at the women’s maximum security prison in Rhode Island for 10 years.
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Originally from Scotland, Andy Tasker has spent the last 20 years living in Spain and Portugal. In no particular order, he is a father, a guitarist, a cat owner, a community volunteer, a physicist, and a poet.
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