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 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.
April 2021
Batch 016: 04/28/21
Seth Jani
Aspects of Mind
It’s a part of nature, really.
Clear stream, gatherer of birds.
Despite our fixations,
it’s untroubled.
A mirror, an organ
giving and receiving light.
From the pulp of books
it reaches out into
a vast freedom.
It dreams all day
of calm water.
Surrounded by the wind-voweled
language of trees
it becomes green and still.
It’s untouched by grief
and yet contains it
in its landscape of garden stones.
It’s colorless, though it knows
all the dialects of red and blue,
yellow, the world’s spectrum.
It interfuses everything
like a luminous sap.
Jeanne Morel & Anthony Warnke
Dinner in the Mallard Room
Ex-husbands.
Climate surveys.
Open mics.
Open wide.
Fire with fire.
Fun photos.
New in-laws.
Intense fun.
Is he your husband?
Ex.
Yes?
Ex.
Oh, complicated.
I wondered why
you were whispering
yes
Ex.
Yes, ex.
Uh oh.
Same table.
What next—
Icebreakers.
Hypertension.
Nice dress.
DS Maolalai
The lid
we sit on wet grass
and drink until late
in the evening. the sky
gives an embery sunset,
which fades into darkness
from rust. we are out
in the open, the phoenix
park gardens, and under
the old papal cross.
cars mark their passage
toward city through
silence. headlights
in darkness, like baits
on some hideous fish.
our field is an unlit
and black stovetop surface.
the sky laid above us, black
also, unstarlit; the lid
of a well-maintained pot.
we are drinking together
in the peace of a singular
moment. and life all around it,
the shape of unclimbable hills.
Gerard Sarnat
Ecstatically Pre-Occupied Octopi haiku
Solitary by
nature, these hermits respond
to MDMA
like human brethren:
sociable, less defensive,
more interested.
Ennui antidote
that’s more than anecdotal
—boost serotonin?
Walter Weinschenk
Beyond
Beside the ancient ocean,
Beyond the final star,
No light, no sound
No remonstration
But for the rhythm
Of your breathing,
Resists the frigid air.
Nothing to be done
But brace against the cutting wind;
It skips across the surf,
Sees you standing
On the shore,
Drives like mad
To meet you there.
Contributor Information
Seth Jani lives in Seattle, WA and is the founder of Seven CirclePress (www.sevencirclepress.com). His work has appeared in The American Poetry Journal, Chiron Review, Ghost City Review, Rust+Moth, and Pretty Owl Poetry, among others. His full-length collection, Night Fable, was published by FutureCycle Press in 2018. Visit him at www.sethjani.com.
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Jeanne Morel is the author of the chapbooks, Jackpot (Bottlecap Press), That Crossing Is Not Automatic (Tarpaulin Sky Press), and I See My Way to Some Partial Results (forthcoming from Ravenna Press). She lives in Seattle where she teaches writing and is a gallery guide at the Frye Art Museum.
Anthony Warnke’s poetry has appeared in Cimarron Review, North American Review, Sixth Finch, and Sugar House Review, among other publications. His chapbook, Super Worth It, is forthcoming from Newfound. He teaches writing at Green River College and lives in Seattle.
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DS Maolalai has been nominated eight times for Best of the Net and five times for the Pushcart Prize. His poetry has been released in two collections, Love is Breaking Plates in the Garden (Encircle Press, 2016) and Sad Havoc Among the Birds (Turas Press, 2019).
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Gerard Sarnat won San Francisco Poetry’s 2020 Contest, the Poetry in the Arts First Place Award, plus the Dorfman Prize, and he has been nominated for handfuls of 2021 and previous Pushcart and Best of the Net Awards. Gerry is widely published including in Buddhist Poetry Review, Gargoyle, Main Street Rag, New Delta Review, Arkansas Review, Northampton Review, New Haven Poetry Institute, Texas Review, Vonnegut Journal, Brooklyn Review, San Francisco Magazine, Monterey Poetry Review, The Los Angeles Review, and The New York Times as well as by Harvard, Stanford, Dartmouth, Penn, Chicago, and Columbia presses. He’s authored the collections Homeless Chronicles (2010), Disputes (2012), 17s (2014), Melting the Ice King (2016).
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Walter Weinschenk is an attorney, writer, and musician. Walter’s writing has appeared in a number of literary publications including the Carolina Quarterly, Sunspot Literary Journal, Cathexis Northwest Press, The Gateway Review, East by Northeast Literary Magazine, an anthology entitled Falling Leaves published by Day Eight and forthcoming in The Courtship of Winds, Months to Years, Penumbra, Ponder Review, The Raw Art Review, The Dillydoun Review Daily, and Iris Literary Journal. Walter lives in a suburb just outside Washington, D. C.
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April 2021
Batch 015: 04/06/21
Owen Talbot
Small Eternity
There is a small eternity
To witness every morning.
A ripening serenity
With great potential. Burning,
It swells until it bursts, and slips
From my eager grasp.
And suddenly I find myself
In daylight’s loving clasp.
As I behold I am beheld
By ever-loving eyes.
This morning offers me the chance
To meet the Gaze with pride.
I’ll live and swell and burst and sigh
One day. I’ll finally relax.
I’ll lay down for new time to push
Up from my weathered back.
Glen Armstrong
Cherry Cola LIX
Scratches, smiles, gloss, pain.
The world outside
arrives
in pieces.
Stained glass, veins, traffic, flames.
I take a walk and
find
my way by counting yellow houses.
Pan-fried trout and
hot
air balloons.
There are pieces of this that Sister needs
and pieces that she must
avoid.
Tap shoes and soy.
The world’s low hum undermines
its here and
there.
Elizabeth Hoover
Jupiter’s Message
(for 2021)
you said
I’ll be the home for a god of thunder
on your planet
despite
my 50-kilometer thick
thinly sliced clouds
by comparison
roaming 472.9 million
miles from where
you stand
you said
I’ll be the home for a god of thunder
on your planet
far away forever yes but
Greek mythologies have yet
to object
you said
go ahead and take your time
twenty-four hours
a sleepwalked ceremonial full spin
that’s fine
I’ll be sprinting
spinning
fourth brightest
in our neighborhood
318 times your size
full circle
beating you by
fourteen lonely hours
I never want to hear you say impossible
Patrick Moran
David Krausman
Mountain II
When the photographer turns away, the model crosses
the top of one foot into the supplicating arch of the other.
Forearms folding underneath himself, he lifts,
back muscles rotating, converging, exuviating,
ink dripping, mountain no longer,
but a raised scratch, tender, script illegible.
Contributor Information
Owen Talbot was born in Santiago, Chile, and he currently lives in Los Angeles, California, working as a bilingual elementary school educator. He received his bachelor’s degree in Spanish Linguistics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and he spent a year abroad at the University of Chile. In 2017, Owen published Lifting the Vastness, his first body of work. You can find his work on Instagram @highinkpoetry.
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Glen Armstrong holds an MFA in English from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and teaches writing at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. He edits a poetry journal called Cruel Garters and has three current books of poems: Invisible Histories, The New Vaudeville, and Midsummer. His work has appeared in Poetry Northwest, Conduit, and Cream City Review.
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Elizabeth Hoover’s poetry has been published in Issue 4 of Poached Hare Journal, Issue 2 of Beyond Words Magazine, and in The Magic of Inspirational Poetry by Wingless Dreamer Press. Her poems have also been used as song lyrics for composers Kevin Yee, Kimberly Slater, and Tan Sang. She lives in Sausalito, CA.
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Patrick Moran is the author of five collections of poetry and the editor of an anthology of contemporary Scottish Poetry. He currently teaches creative writing at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. The poem that appears here is from a series of poems that offer a re-contextualized response to different characters from literature and popular fiction.
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David Krausman was born and raised in southern California. His poetry has appeared most recently in Oyster River Pages, Helen Literary Magazine, The Lake, and others.
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