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.
Measurement and Estimation
The carats of the diamond
the number of wedding guests
The number of zeros in a salary
the square footage of the house
the number of bedrooms and bathrooms it contains
The size of the refrigerator
the number of times it’s been replaced
The designer clothes inside the closet
the total count of shoes
the size of the jewelry cabinet
The number of years she stayed at home
the number of children put through college
The number of days she spends alone
the number of days that she has smiled
the number of days that she pretends to
Rock a Bye
When no one is looking at me when
everyone keeps spewing big euphoria
I want to crawl into the solar-powered
snail that is velcro-ed to the upstairs
porch railing up in the treetops
sit inside its dark silent place
envision, dream
look out of its bulbous clear eyes
that wobble around on springs
taking in views as they come and go
from different angles gently
pushed and pulled by holy breezes
until my little light is recharged
until it can shine, glow, be fresh again
ready to confess my temporary outage
Cowboy gospel
Cowboys from tennessee think they know something about revelation
But this cowboy writes odes to the buffalo and not the hunt
And knows that even in peacetime there is death
Something like a songbird
But not a bird at all
He has sea legs and can’t inhale without opening his entire chest westward
A holy outlaw by any other name is still an outlaw
But he likes it when I lean into his kiss and make sad words pretty
And I like it when his jaw clicks when he opens his mouth wide enough to swallow me whole
I like it when I say amen and mean it
Nascence
between form
and nothingness
emptiness glisters
absence
floods caverns,
feeds springs
budding thought
leads to word oases
–the thirsty one drinks
nightfall
we were better together
in the rain, laughing between
the drops before the clouds swooped
away and light shone in every moment.
if we could jump stars tonight
would it make you believe in
this world, barefoot, anything
possible, bleached with wishes?
Jennifer Handy explores sexuality, psychological trauma, mental illness, homelessness, severed family relationships, and environmental issues through poetry. Her poetry has been published in The Closed Eye Open, CommuterLit, Last Stanza Poetry Journal, and Loud Coffee Press. Her poetry chapbook California Burning is forthcoming in fall 2024.
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Susan Shea was raised in New York City and now lives in a forest in Pennsylvania. In the past year, she made the full-time transition from school psychologist to poet. In that time, more than one hundred of her poems have been accepted for publication by Invisible City, Ekstasis, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Across the Margin, October Hill Magazine, Lit Break Magazine, New English Review, Foreshadow, and others.
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Allyssa Haygood-Taylor is an author and poet from South Carolina, currently living in Nashville, TN. She’s been published in Asterism Literary Magazine, Beyond Words Literary Magazine, Moon Love Press, and more. She is a semi-finalist for the Red Wheelbarrow Poetry Prize and a Pushcart Prize nominee.
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J. Thomas Brown lives in Richmond, Virginia. His short stories and poems have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies. Other works include Saint Elmo’s Light: Collected Short Stories, Driving With Poppi: A Patremoir, Mooncalf poetry collection, The Hole in the Bone, and Land of Three Houses.
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K.L. Johnston is best known for regional works and poetry centered in spiritual experience, nature, and trauma survival. Her second book of poems, Grace Period, was released in January 2024. Her current work in progress concentrates on syllabic and micro-form poetry. She lives near the banks of the Savannah River where the little things in life provide her with plenty to write about. You can follow her at www.Facebook.com/A-Written-World.
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life of the rabbit: nineteen ninety nine
alert and aware, yet
quiet.
—an isolating amalgamation.
society storms and thunders with conflict.
the rabbit is not oblivious to this despite
what others believe.
—the rabbit brings an umbrella.
Pebbles
i don’t lift my feet up anymore when i walk
i want to feel the little pebbles rolling under my step
it reminds me of our shared humanity
stepping on the same rocks
same blisters inside our shoes
same heart in our chests
same moon when we go to sleep
so i drag my feet along this rocky path
connecting our yesterday, today, and tomorrow
Yellow Arm of Destruction
The backhoe, Shiva the destroyer in disguise,
pounds the earth in an arc
around a tree of a certain age,
the last one standing
in what has been rendered a sandpit
where they say a hotel will rise.
Will it cast cool shade in summer,
exchange oxygen for carbon dioxide,
offer a home and sustenance to
wild things without wallets?
I am parked just a wobbly fence away,
the vibrations traveling underground
make me worry which way the tree will fall.
I ask Vishnu, the preserver, to stand guard
while I go inside for my appointment
and wonder why Brahma, the creator, thinks
our town needs another hotel.
No Running In The Graveyard
Bottles lined atop tombstones,
Plenty of rocks to throw
Laughter and shattered glass.
The headstone marks the finish line
On three, everyone goes—
Keep your foot behind the line, cheater.
Flat stones hidden in grass.
Slap of shoes. Silence. Laughter.
Chants. Cursed! Cursed! Cursed!
Only one way to get rid of the curse:
Kiss the tombstone and apologize.
Speak the name of the dead.
Grass-stains on your stomach;
Lips pressed to the granite.
Warm in the sun, yet always so cold.
This is how we honored our dead:
Let the children be children.
There is nowhere else left for them.
the occult
At the greyhound track
the mechanical hare
malfunctions.
The dogs stop, circle, sniff,
suddenly aware.
fiona rose is poet from San Diego. She studied biological sciences and art history in university. Last year, while solo traveling across seven countries, she got the feeling that she should be writing poetry. You can find her work in The Closed Eye Open, From Whispers to Roars, and In Parentheses.
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Sophia Kaushik hopes that her writing speaks to the reader’s emotions and creates a sense of connection with one’s innermost self. Her work has been published in Humans of the World, Cosmic Daffodil Journal, Half and One, Bright Flash Literary Review, New Plains Review, and Flint Hills Review.
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Emily-Sue Sloane is an award-winning poet who writes about the wonder, the worry, and human connection. Her many publications include full-length collection We Are Beach Glass (2022) and chapbook Disconnects and Other Broken Threads (2024). Sloane lives in Huntington Station, NY with her wife, singer-songwriter Linda Sussman. Website: emilysuesloane.com
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CS Crow is a storyteller from the Southeastern United States with a love of nature and a passion for writing. He believes stories and poems are about getting there, not being there, and he enjoys those tales that take their time getting to the point.
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J.T. Whitehead earned a law degree from Indiana University, Bloomington. He received a master’s degree in philosophy from Purdue, where he studied Existentialism, social and political philosophy, and Eastern Philosophy. He spent time between, during, and after schools on a grounds crew, as a pub cook, a writing tutor, a teacher’s assistant, a delivery man, a book shop clerk, and a liquor store clerk, inspiring four years as a labor lawyer on the workers’ side.
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I see the beginning outside my window
the trees interlock embracing to the inevitable
spasming against the pummelling wind
ripping leaves off each branch
it’s a violent sight as the early morning screams
relentless in its pursuit to destroy what’s fragile
I feel like one of those languid gods as I stare out my window
cool teacup in my hand useless and spoiled in my safety
the rain pelting the glass rivulets I trace with my finger
the drops only turning gentle as they fall down my windowsill
Plastic
Baby grasshoppers
Rip the insides of their stomachs
On used silverware
And fill themselves with plastic
Things stuck in frog toes
Forget the loneliness of icicles
Chewing on a radish
He fills his pockets with buttons
And watches the fabric flex to hold them
His buttons massage the tense muscles on his thighs
They assume he lives his life fighting the concrete
Among my backyard weeds
A fleeting bark leaps from the stopped dog
In garden bed rows drought dried garlic burnt
Cobwebs mingle with the remnant of a wasp hive
A lone hornet flies free like a torn portrait
Unsourced winds cage the afternoon
There is only a trace of what was
It’s small breaths that sustain
In either direction it’s either direction
Memory stays static in the mind’s tool bag
Danger lurks like a smile’s downturn
The aroma of love singe hangs in midair
Every sunset marks a cascade of daily disguise
I hide among abandonment
Yesterday
the big dead tree on the slope beneath our
house finally fell.
We all looked up at the crrack and crunch and
whomp and then silence,
as small leaves danced in the eddies of wind.
I found my hands clasped across my mouth
in the classic gesture of amazement.
Later I walked out to view the giant felled.
Its bones lie white and broken across the bush floor.
There is more sunlight there, filling the gap where birds
fought for nest space, goannas eyed eggs,
and a forest giant lived for a century or so.
One tree is gone. And a whole world.
when lead turns poisonous
lead doors are bursting forth
and you haven’t even finished
your dinner yet
sublime porcelain turned
lyrical, painted in crimson
fingerprints
gold hues line the stacks
of books, the shadows of
unturned pages
i know now that this haunted
home does not belong to me,
to anyone
it is far too quiet for only the birds
to have stopped their out-of-tune
singing
if you would just finish your dinner
then the children would stop
starving and the ghosts
would melt back into the walls
which are coated with lead paint
Carmen Corridan is from Ireland. Her poems have been published in Impossible Archetype, Sad Girl Diaries, Hare’s Paw Literary Journal, and Quillkeepers Press.
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Mira Hartley is a poet from Portland, Oregon. She has poems published in Sunstroke Magazine, Surj Magazine, and Always in a Funk Magazine. You can find more of her work on Instagram @m.i.r.a.hartley.
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Jonathan Memmert is a poet who resides in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of Manhattan. Jonathan has an MFA in creative writing from The City College of New York. Jonathan’s poetry has been published in 433, Global City Review, 1455 Movable Type, Promethean Literary Journal, Artediolia: Swifts & Slows, Heavy Feather Review’s Side A, and on the WordshedNYC website. Jonathan has read his poetry at the annual New York Poetry Festival in New York City in 2019, 2021, and 2022. Jonathan is the associate editor for the online poetry journal for emerging poets, The Marbled Sigh. Jonathan still seeks and finds many encounters with wonder in the midst of adversity in this world.
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Wendy Blaxland’s award-winning poetry is widely published around the world, including Australia, England, United States, and Europe. She also relishes writing children’s books and plays, as well as exploring the past, the future and the funny side of life in her work. Find out more at wendyblaxlandwriter.com.
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Ophelia Monet is an educator, mother, and storm chaser, living in the suburbs of Cincinnati with her husband and their son. She began writing in 2022, after learning that her late mother was a published writer under a pseudonym. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Malu Zine, Beyond Words Literary Magazine, Loud Coffee Press, Aureation Zine, and Blue Lake Review. Find her on Instagram at @mysoullaidbare.
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Lepidopterist
At night the day’s news swirls
unsteadily about my burning mind;
all these worries alight on my body
like moths, fluttering their dark wings.
Only you can gather them in the net
of your arms, and pin them into stillness.
Prejudiced Watering Habits
forgiving the flower in its pursuit to grow
grass blades chopped and dried but fragrant petals
beg you don’t cut me out
once small and cared for from seed
clumsily breaks from their shell
hopeful to fit in under the same sun
droughts are unforgiving
because rain was never something we could rely on
the spigot carries the intention
mistakes browned their green leaves
it still persists in the heat
missing the sharp careless hack of scissors
it’s alive, it’s a magic trick with water
imagine what could grow
if every soul was treated like a blooming flower
Sauna
The handle of the pot turns. I’m sorry. An oceanic
sobbing disrupts, disrupts
like snow on a lit wood stove—the clear drops run
off the black metal in shrieks, in shrieks.
I open
the harsh world outside the wooden door.
Wind bites. Lit steam whips the dark.
Forgiveness always. Coyotes scream
and rip a deer’s throat.
I walk into the sound like a room.
Capnomancy
Last night as I tended to a vernal fire
I saw shadows ascend from the scrying smoke.
As the glowing logs
gave up their store of sap
and sparked into existence
a veil of embers—
the fleeting constellation,
climbed to claim its sky.
From the healing hearth,
my own shadow rose,
a dark semblance of self
ash and flame curled upward
My bones banished the brume
my skin shed its shape.
I claimed,
as did the embers,
my incendiary self.
For Violeta Parra
Neither plant nor sky
Dawn brings clouds ready to break
into song; you sleep
using the bullet you hoped
would bring a revolution.
M. Benjamin Thorne is an Associate Professor of Modern European History at Wingate University. Possessed of a lifelong love of history and poetry, he is interested in exploring the synergy between the two. His poems appear or are forthcoming in Autumn Sky Poetry, Poets for Science, Drunk Monkeys, Sky Island Journal, Cathexis Northwest, Ponder Review, and other journals. He lives and sometimes sleeps in Charlotte, NC.
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Erin Kroncke is a writer and artist. Currently she attends California State University Northridge studying for her BA in English. Erin has previously been published in the PCC Courier and Inscape Magazine. She has had her shorts featured film festivals including the Topanga Film Festival. She lives in Los Angeles with her family.
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James Champion is from Whitehall, Michigan. He loves wild strawberries, ghosts of frogs, and someone in Portland who has blue hair. He believes poetry is soul excavation. Find the lit window, then look in it. He has a bad habit of looking only at his shoes as he walks place to place, but this makes arrival (and the sky) a constant surprise. What else should he say? You can find him online at @jameslchampion on Instagram and X.
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Lucinda Pinchot has been writing poetry since 1976. She recently had work published in The Closed Eye Open, From Months to Years, and Medmic. Her interests are human nature, magic, science, and living through grief.
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When not listening to music, Carla Schick can be found at cafes reading and studying poetry and at protests. They are a queer, nonbinary activist working to transform our lives and the way we think about the world. Poetry is a natural place to push the boundaries of imagination. Their work can be found in Black Fox Literary Magazine, Forum Literary Journal, Milvia St., Sinister Wisdom, and Fourteen Hill, as well as in anthologies such as Colossus: Body, Moonstone Press, and Pure Slush.
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