by Caroline Streff and Ray Ball Not content to dabble in golden fobs and adamantine chains,The hobbler stole his uncle’s notebookFrom its hiding place in the hollow of a tree.It barely held its shape, like a pillowcase all stuffed with dreams.He chose at random from the chapter of the Horrible.He sculpted the monster’s trunk from clayAnd crowned it with five Read More
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Best of the Net 2019 Nominations
Today we announce our Best of the Net 2019 Nominations. For those unfamiliar, Sundress Publications produces an annual Best of the Net Anthology to showcase online work. Submissions for the anthology, however, must come from the online publication that first shared the work online. In addition, for the 2019 anthology, the work must have appeared between July 1, 2018 and Read More
Calle Neptuno, La Habana
by Ray Ball, PhD My ankle wobbles as I step on the uneven textures of the street and sidewalks. In the afternoon heat the trash piled high shimmers in the intersections of Centro Havana. A sign reads: do not litter! But a man tosses an Read More
Moveable Feast
by Ray Ball, PhD In memory of Jan During her funeral, which I could not attend, I wondered why there are so few Moveable Feasts. She told me once, while we were doing something mundane, like getting frozen yogurt at TCBY, that one of them is the day of St. Sarkis. That Christian general who marched to Antioch, but realized Read More
The quality of protecting
by Ray Ball, PhD The centertastes likecoconut,drunk as a delicacy.In the moonthe apocalypseof fruit.Inside it,the absence.They requirestrength.It seems incredible that they cancontain whateverI know.And that Iand theyare softin texture. Note from the author: This is a found poem. The original text is Jane E. Mangan’s critical edition of José de Acosta’s Natural and Moral History of the Indies. Ray Ball, Read More
In Pilates Class
by Ray Ball, PhD Sometimeswe do a movecalled The Elephant.Legs splayed evoking the memoryof the animal’s shape,its proboscis reaching.The muscle memoryof the hips that storeso much emotionthat never forgetstretched tau(gh)tologically.I read somewherethat elephants mourntheir dead. If onlymourning could beclear and simple,brash like the trumpetingof a pachyderm.If only what I buriedstayed under the earth,but the elephant digs it up, the fragile Read More
Duolingo Ponies
by Ray Ball, PhD My horse does not eat rice. I admit the horse is the horse I have only ever had between outwitting advertisements. I can’t omit to tell you the horse drinks milk. My ponies probably have flanks, shiny with sweat, but I don’t know the words for shiny or flank yet. For pony either. Is it the Read More