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 until our next full issue is ready for release.
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.
Orion Ascending
Last night, 2 A.M.,
Orion’s sword cleaved
the Rincon Mountains. At dawn,
orange dragonflies draw figure-8s,
symbols of infinity, on a pool reflecting
empty skies. The Pacific states burn with fury,
but here black palm seeds drop and roll,
lantana withers, and bougainvillea blossoms fall
as autumn decapitates summer–
a summer never consummated by Ghalib’s
intoxication of Monsoon clouds.
And where there is no summer,
how can fall exist?
Crafting
At some point as I sprout shoulders, hips, and sacrilegious language, and develop a fascination with perfection, I go on walks and kick rocks in the Polaroid silence and spit at the plastic grass, looking for some scrap of divinity that I can pocket and make mine. I write down a list of things that, in my opinion, come close to holy: unblemished hands with saintly geometries, immaculate planes of shifting Arctic ice, tangerine street-lights saluting in a straight row down my block. That night, I arrive at the conclusion that this tideless flesh can and should emulate perfect cleanliness. I begin by kneeling on the bathroom floor.
Morning Poem #10
If logic
is a tool
of philosophy
and philosophy
is a kind
of poetry,
then poetry
is a way
of drawing
circles.
(then poetry
is a practice
that makes
sense
where
there was
none.)
Fire
The desert’s shimmering mirage evaporated in unrelenting flames consuming the ethereal horizon. A young woman’s formless voice requested that I park my ATV. She introduced herself as, “a point of light,” offering to meet at that location index when I woke, “to consider fire.”
Later, I tried in vain to forget the odd dream.
The badlands periphery disappeared into an ominous distant haze. A flash in the sagebrush should have been a jackrabbit, but the eyes were wrong. Soft, blue lights stared into my deepest thoughts. Conversing in images exposed the truth, but she gave as good as she took.
Tarn
As the yarn is spun –
the tarn – crystal clear –
in mind’s eye.
Marbles
One’s head is lost –
marbles spout.
Tucson author Susan Cummins Miller, a recovering field geologist and college instructor, compiled and edited A Sweet, Separate Intimacy: Women Writers of the American Frontier, 1800-1922, and writes the Frankie MacFarlane, Geologist, mysteries for Texas Tech University Press. Miller’s award-winning poems, short stories and essays have appeared in, or are forthcoming in, numerous journals and anthologies, including 2020’s What We Talk About When We Talk About It: Variations on the Theme of Love I, II. Website: www.susancumminsmiller.com
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Poem Schway resides in Las Vegas, Nevada. When not writing, she enjoys baking and spending time with her dog.
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Scott F. Parker is the author of Being on the Oregon Coast and A Way Home: Oregon Essays, as well as the editor of Conversations with Ken Kesey.
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Ken Olson lives in the Pacific Northwest. His haiku poetry has been selected for the Red Moon Anthology four times, the 2019 Special Issue of Right Hand Pointing, and featured in Ion Codrescu’s new book, The Wanderer Brush. In 2019, Ken published stories in Crack the Spine, Sky Island Journal, and Silver Needle Press. His 2020 publications include Centifictionist and Wild Roof Journal.
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Zach Trabona graduated from Colorado State University with an English degree and a concentration in Creative Writing. He is a librarian and resides in North Carolina. Instagram @poetrybyzvt
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Sky Above, Ground Below, And All That is Between
we used to lie on our backs
in the grasses
for many hours
gazing at the sky
the earth would feel so warm
holding us in its embrace
later the ground would cool
harden and still
we would be there
together, sharing
dreaming
learning each other
those birds would fly
almost as high as
our imaginations could soar
on wings of innocence
and hope
the sunset colors would fade
until the shine of the stars
brought their own
twinkling colors
and more truth
but less space
between
us
Puppets
It’s hard to see a tree without the wires
puppets on a string the telephone must ring
the sun tops off the leaves as dusk grows deep
the light shines their undersides
beyond a line of communication
another to turn on the lamp
our puppet strings holding us together
separating us from natural beauty
a cardinal relaxes on my television
A very brief review of Calvino’s Invisible Cities
Entering the invisible cities, wondrous, enchanting visions, full of mysteries, we search for the tracery of a pattern so subtle, were someone else to perceive it, it would elude any attempt at interpretation. We seek a coign of vantage wherefrom an understanding constructed from a zodiac of the mind’s phantasms can be obtained. Everything imaginable can be dreamed. We dream to grow in lightness, as labile mists of memory provide meaning in a mental space. At the interstices of memory, thought, and imagination, we travel across the lake of our mind. We see a glint of lights in the fog. Whence unknown, where dream and reality coincide.
Note: All the phrases in italics are directly taken from Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino (Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich 1974)
Revisionist History
Skin cedes to scrape cedes to
scab cedes to scar. Scar cedes to
skin and statute of limitations,
as if nothing ever happened
(but I still see blood on my elbow,
and it’s always Tuesday morning) to me.
Nothing Is Ever Just One Thing
I miss not noticing how
growing old groans through you,
surfacing as stains, curiously without cause,
coming from forever, coming since forever.
I can’t look for long, afraid the weight of my stare
will bring further bruising, afraid I’ll become the moon,
and my face will tell the tides what to do,
turn those stains to spills, find tomorrow
you’re soaked through.
Confession (With Redactions)
S said I should just go ahead and [verb] [Proper Noun] already since ‘as far as we knew’ you were [verb-ing] everyone you met.
But I never believed that!
And besides I never wanted to [verb] [Proper Noun], I only wanted to [(different) verb] him.
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Shantha J. Bunyan, a queer person of color, is a scuba dive master currently land-locked in her native Colorado. A former surgical technician who received a BA in Neuroscience from Colorado College, she spent the majority of the past six years living abroad, traveling to over 35 countries. Her poetry appears in publications such as DoveTales, International Journal of the Arts: Resistance, published by Writing for Peace, 140Max Magazine, What Rough Beast, and The Silence in Her Vase. Some of her travel adventures can be found at RandomPiecesofPeace.com.
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Jason Melvin is a happily married father of three children. He has been writing for years as therapy, the current therapy necessitated by the fact that he’s getting older and his children are leaving to become adults. His work has recently appeared in From Whispers to Roars and is upcoming in The Raw Art Review, Rat’s Ass Review, and The Beatnik Cowboy.
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Kimmo Rosenthal, after teaching mathematics for many years, has turned from mathematical research to writing. His work has appeared in Prime Number (nominated for a Pushcart Prize), EDGE, decomP, KYSO Flash, The Fib Review, The Ekphrastic Review, Hinterland, After the Art, The RavensPerch, MacQueen’s Quinterly, and The Decadent Review.
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Samantha Madway is working on a collection of interlinked poems and flash fiction. She loves her dogs, Charlie, Parker, and Davey, more than anything else in the universe. Though technophobic, she attempts to be brave by having an Instagram @sometimesnight. If the profile were a plant, it would’ve died long ago. Her writing has appeared in Linden Ave, High Shelf, Sky Island Journal, Aurora, mutiny!, Clementine Unbound, SLAB, and elsewhere.
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Julie Benesh has been published in Tin House Magazine, Bestial Noise: A Tin House Fiction Reader, Crab Orchard Review, Florida Review, Gulf Stream, Berkeley Fiction Review, Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, Bridge, Green Briar Review, and other places. Her work has earned an Illinois Arts Council Grant and a Pushcart nomination. Julie has an MFA in fiction from Warren Wilson College, lives in Chicago with two cats and a lot of books, and works a day job as a professor and at a school of psychology.
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