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.
Monterey Moon Tree
We spent an afternoon under the Monterey Moon tree.
Midlife moths sunbathing in the dappled light.
You always said you loved me to the moon and back.
We drink in the shade and float above the roots.
Jar our vows, bury it under the earth.
Marvel at the green leaves, alien-born.
The wind has something to say:
We are all dust, moon and moth.
Roughening the Rainbow
Our internal cameras
aren’t riveted to rigid poles;
we can roll in and out of position
to tell what has truly happened,
not a crude reenactment,
or an airbrushed rainbow,
hiding its imperfections of color
and shape, requiring tools
of sensory exactitude
to replicate what could make
Wordsworth’s heart leap up.
What’s written on the brain
is unseeable, unsayable,
’til immersed inside a sealed
container of poetic astringency,
to desiccate,
roughen the rainbow,
expose subdermal wounds
in personal or shared history,
places where, Rumi says, light enters.
Pink
Pink is the sun dying in winter
The Virgin Mary is church-pink, bashful
And toilet seats, lip gloss, oxycodone
Pink and red are careful cordial cousins
In Wyoming there is no pink
You can get the blues, but never the pinks
Pink is a whisper, a kiss that
Never bites.
Troll
I think, therefore I’m wrong. My gut leads me to the truth while my heart — the grey
coward — retreats in its cage without rattling the bars. My brain is the policeman behind
which my mischievous impulses are sneaking out — one by one — giggling loudly as they
slip my tongue. I will show you how precious nature is — more cryptic and immediate
than sheer numbers and statistics. I will empower you to stick your neck out as far as it
goes to take a dance on the edge of the world only to realize that it is — indeed — round.
Forage
I have hardened and harbor
low expectations for pressing matters,
my eyes blind to signs, your subtle
arrival. You push through
hardpan a little more each day
until I trip over your green resilience.
Slender stems blade the clay
as you emerge, vertical despite herbicide
last fall’s mowers and this stretch
of drought. Are you here to teach me
with your wordless determination, lack
of fanfare, your tender resolution?
O cold season grass, you never surrender,
but spear willpower to sprout
finding you are not alone.
Hailing from Michigan, Amber Penney currently resides in a Chicago suburb with her husband, Andrew, and their son, Jude. A self-taught mixed-media artist, she works out of her home studio. Penney is also an accomplished poet; her poetry collection, Phases of Flight, was published in by Bottlecap Press in 2023. Website: amberwaaavesart.com
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Alison Jennings is a Seattle-based poet who taught in public schools before returning to her first love, poetry. She has had a mini-chapbook of 10 poems and 100 other poems published in numerous journals, including Burningword, Cathexis Northwest Press, Meat for Tea, Mslexia, Poetic Sun, Red Door, Sonic Boom, and The Raw Art Review. She has also won 3rd Place/Honorable Mention or been a semi-finalist in several contests. Website: sites.google.com/view/airandfirepoet/home
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Gordon W. Mennenga has had work featured on NPR and published in Epiphany, North American Review, Epoch, Bellingham Review, Chicago Tribune, and Hamilton Stone Review. He made his first appearance on Spotify this year with his story “Last Words.” These days, he spends a lot of time with Johann Sebastian Bach.
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Sylvia Niederberger is a Swiss-Canadian lecturer, avid reader, theatre nerd, and language lover. She currently lives in Switzerland.
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Kathy Pon earned a doctorate in education, but in retirement turned to her lifelong passion for writing poetry. Her husband is a third-generation farmer, and they live in the middle of an almond orchard. Her poems have been/will be featured in Euonia Reivew, Wild Roof Journal, Passengers Journal, Canary, RockPaperPoem, The Tiger Moth Review, and others.
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