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.
The word callipygian
needs a poem.
It can’t roll and undulate
without an understanding
and appreciation for it.
We like words
that are suggestive,
that throw our imagination
up into the air.
If you can see it
in your mind’s eye,
can watch the scene
with moving figures
you can have it
for yourself.
Chains
The first step on the road to freedom
is to recognise your chains. Not easy
when they shine with golden lustre,
display a fine filigree,
have the tempered strength of platinum
and adorn the body with a beauty
that dazzles the sight.
Burnt Sienna
At the end of the bough of the Japanese maple
the leaves are beginning to turn; the tips
of five fingers, already red, the hand
a burnt sienna. The remaining fabric
clothing the body of the branch is still
a young fresh green, but soon the leaves will become
a flaming red: a russet mantle worn
along the shoulders like the fur of a fox,
rich and soft; before they begin to tumble
down the slope, swirling in the wind.
Montana bluegrass
Dream of me like Montana bluegrass,
subtle and attuned to the
breeze around me.
I’ll dream of you like a
westbound train pouring over its tracks,
loud and complex and beautiful and
gone.
I’ll bend a little deeper with the wind in your wake.
Old Houses
I. smell like squeaky, yellow raincoats
II. take us into their confidence like a postoperative x-ray
III. cast our words like funky lures
IV. turn us into moving targets
V. radiators gargle
a. remaindering longwinded-ness
b. queering nasality
VI. closets cosplay Anton Chekov’s asylums
a. wrenching expressionistic trees
b. tone deaf
VII. bookshelves
a. mimic Lady Chatterley’s smug lover
b. adumbrate Scrabble words from Bleak House
c. hive anesthetizing letters addressed to “Dear Voter”
VIII. lean into our weird tableaux
a. of nostalgia
b. of Eros
c. and balm
IX. sponge off our love songs
a. like unflappable libertines
b. like child’s play
Visiting Day
Warbler on the window ledge
Broken footfalls on cracked concrete
Fading photos on cement walls
Hands stretched across cold formica tabletops.
RW Mayer has been an educator in Oregon and Washington public schools. He lives in Snohomish County in Washington where he reads, writes, and fiddles with the guitar. His poetry has appeared in Untenured, The Closed Eye Open, MacQueen’s Quinterly, SPECTRA Poets, and others.
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Rohan Buettel lives in Canberra, Australia. His haiku have appeared in various Australian and international journals (including Frogpond, Cattails, and The Heron’s Nest). His longer poetry recently appears in The Goodlife Review, Rappahannock Review, Penumbra Literary and Art Journal, Mortal Magazine, Passengers Journal, Reed Magazine, Meniscus, and Quadrant.
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Sarah Durrand is a poet residing in San Diego, California. In her spare time, she enjoys rollerblading, collecting rocks, and talking about the birds that visit her bird feeder.
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Renoir Gaither writes from St. Paul, MN. He reads everything he can get his hands on. He’s keen on houseplants, board games, and politics. His favorite workspaces are coffeehouses. His work has recently appeared in South Florida Poetry Review, Quibble, Lily Poetry Review, and New Note Poetry.
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Bettye Jo Bell is a retired teacher and psychotherapist who occasionally writes but never submits. However, her small writing group continues to nag her to do so, so here she is! She has 4 semi-grown children, a curmudgeonly old husband, and a tiny fishing boat she named “The Water Rat.”
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Retrograde
To connect with another
and then wipe them from existence
is to deny the soliloquy of one’s heart.
Even beyond death, we are haunted
by self-exhumed recollections.
Whenever such time is nigh,
they’ll think of when the clocks stopped.
The expectation of another’s guilt
shouldn’t logically exist,
when a clock’s sole purpose
is spiteless, just a tick that persists.
But they’ll remember making
you feel how you felt.
Nothing they repeat inside
can justify, soul nor mind,
the choice that was made the day
in the moment it was decided
to melt a heart of gold
in the very worst way.
Warp and Woof
for Chip Williams
The threads are tied through the heddles,
carried by the shuttle, scissored from the loom.
The selvage gathers the ravel. The fabric
is cut to patterns, stitched from needle to bobbin.
If there is a tan for our tantra, it is the tension
of so many sutras, and this The Weaver knows.
Nothing is made from whole cloth, nothing
is already complete, and the seams always show.
flashback
the black bird’s cry
I remember
linger a while
watch it fly
Twinned Flesh
I see my old body through the mottle
of stretch marks. It is shy, afraid
to speak up in the shadow of this
mother-cover. Twinned flesh, no carapace—
the empty den of my abdomen frigid,
dark, echoey as an old bell tower.
The Hollow Places
My vagina,
a cavern.
My belly,
an empty house.
My daughter’s
open mouth
in sleep—
every question
I can’t answer.
Limerence
This false love would surprise you,
vicious and viscous like poisoned honey.
Slow to start, but certain,
insidious as a viper in waiting.
A myriad of possibilities,
like tiny pills promising pleasure.
They rest on my tongue,
ready for me to swallow.
But your hands are clumsy,
stupid as butterfly nets.
And my exploding pieces, swirling like stardust,
slip past you without you noticing, without you caring.
Cigarette burning between my lips,
heaped with ash (long-since smoked but smoldering still).
Now, the star-filled sky is fading,
Embers rising from the earth I scorched.
And the gray haze of morning descends,
Finally returning me to my dreadful slumber.
Fruit Flies Like a Banana
PERHAPS IT WAS wrong to trace his career to that moment – through the knotty contradictions of time, or life itself – but you never really knew, did you? He’d tried it all: swatters, fly-paper, even Raid, blasting sickly-sweet clouds around the kitchen. One neglected dab of banana and they bred in swarms.
Time for daddy’s recipe. One bowl of cider-vinegar, a dash of detergent, clear-wrap on top and a few kamikaze pricks. Then wait. Five minutes, ten. One or two flies trapped, dying. Fifteen minutes, twenty and the bodies piled high in their thousands.
Perhaps the old ways had something to them, after all.
Carolyn Laudan is an emerging poet living in Nashville, Tennessee. She is currently a traveling nurse who homeschools her preteen daughter, while they venture the country together. With newfound flexibility, she has been able to resume her creative endeavors and work toward establishing herself professionally as a published writer. Carolyn’s dream is to share her story and create a legacy of writing shaped by her life experiences in the hopes that readers facing similar issues can connect with her words.
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John Tessitore has been a newspaper reporter, a magazine writer, and a biographer. He has taught British and American history and literature at colleges around Boston and has directed national policy studies on education, civil justice, and cultural policy. He serves as Co-Editor Across the Pond for The Wee Sparrow Poetry Press. His poems have appeared in the The American Journal of Poetry, The Wallace Stevens Journal, The Ekphrastic Review, The Closed Eye Open, Wild Roof Journal, and elsewhere. He has also published four chapbooks and a novella available at www.johntessitore.com.
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Cindy Milwe is a writer and teacher who lives in Venice, CA with her husband and three children. She earned a BA from NYU’s Gallatin Division, a Masters in English Education at Columbia University’s Teachers College, and an MFA in poetry from Bennington College. Her work has been published in many journals and magazines, including 5 AM, Alaska Quarterly Review, The New York Quarterly, Poetry East, Poet Lore, The William and Mary Review, Flyway, Talking River Review, and The Georgetown Review, among others. She also has poems in three anthologies: Another City: Writing from Los Angeles (City Lights, 2001), Changing Harm to Harmony: The Bullies and Bystanders Project (Marin Poetry Center Press, 2015), and Rumors, Secrets & Lies (Anhinga Press, 2022).
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Margaret Wallace is an artist, writer, teacher, and mother living in Seattle, Washington. Her writing explores themes of liminality, memories, desires, dreams, and death. Margaret has always written, but she has only recently begun writing purposefully. You can visit her website margaretwallaceauthor.com to view current and forthcoming publications.
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James Roderick Burns’ novella and story collection, Beastly Transparencies, is due from Eyewear in spring 2023. He is the author of four collections of poetry (most recently Chopped Liver, 2022) and a short fiction chapbook, A Bunch of Fives. His work has twice been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. He can be found on Twitter @JamesRoderickB and his Substack newsletter offers a free published story every second week.
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