The Rail
Fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from our favorite emerging writers
Dear Readers, Today we're sharing some poetry to ward off the Sunday Scaries. Please enjoy these two gut-wrenching poems by Irish poet Alison Hackett, who with just a few verses transports you to these dark yet hopeful places. We welcome you to share, and submit your own! Take care, and happy reading! -The Derailleur Press team Nineteen
In Paris. Aupèring. Three young boys to be minded. Cleaning, ironing. Her lacy pants melt and stick to the iron; don’t have to do it anymore. The physical contact is unexpected. Two huge arms engulf me, one hand on my mons, the other on my breast. Trapped. He laughs and leaves. At night, in the tiny apartment, he comes in, puts his hands under the covers, whispers nothing is going to happen, he only wants to get in, lie beside me. I whisper-hiss, non, non; think of his wife next door. Does she know? NON. We go to Normandy, to their holiday home. Bigger. Safer. Her, me and the boys. Not long till he’s back. A couple with him. I know I’m in trouble when his friend does the same thing the next day. Freeze to tiny-boned bird. Back in Paris dozens of messages, in English, on their answering machine. My father, telling me again and again that I failed my exams and must come home. He left me alone until I left. At the end they said I had the beginnings of a Parisian accent.
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Dear Readers, We are so excited for today's piece! Writer Desiree McCullough explores the discomforts of having a body in a beautifully intimate and percussive way. Please read, share, and consider submitting your own work! In other news, our 2022 Fiction chapbook is going to press at the end of the month! Don't forget to preorder your copy. Happy reading! The Derailleur Press Team In between my breasts, a dip, a small reserve. My doctor diagnosed this sunken gap in my breastbone as: “mild pectus excavatum.” This congenital deformity never bothered me until girls in high school started wearing bikinis. The polyester-spandex string stretched over this impasse between my developing chest. A formation in utero ignoring the capacity space for vital organs like a heart and lungs. An overgrowth of connective tissue, the sternum calculating this oddity as: “bore inward and make room.” **** 2/5/2022 0 Comments Quiet Question, by Allan LakeDear Readers, Happy February! We weren't paying attention on Groundhog Day, but here's hoping we only have six more days of winter instead of six weeks. This week we have a lovely poem from Canadian poet Allan Lake. Lake's delicate words play with time and space, and we're sure you're going to love his work just as much as we did. Happy reading, and have a wonderful weekend! The Derailleur Press Team My years back there are faded photos so why are you here, brooding nearby as I tend my garden? Surely nothing left to say between lovers who lavished on each other what was primal, then, hemispheres apart, lost touch. Thought it just as well I was far away at the pain-filled conclusion of your abbreviated life. You weren’t alone. Then, your voice/ /on my phone planting words to keep me on the line. Running out of days long before expected, one thing became clear to you, prompted you to call out across continents. I thought we had both moved on, left it in the past, but you, on the door- step of death, used precious minutes to sow seeds, stored though seasons. They have taken root; I taste the fruit. Allan Lake, originally from Saskatchewan, has lived in Vancouver, Cape Breton, Ibiza, Tasmania, W. Australia & Melbourne. Poetry Collection: Sand in the Sole (Xlibris, 2014). Lake won Lost Tower Publications (UK) Comp 2017, Melbourne Spoken Word Poetry Fest 2018 and publication in New Philosopher 2020. Latest Chapbook (Ginninderra Press 2020) My Photos of Sicily.
Dear Readers, We had two beautiful poems to share with you on Monday but due to some technical difficulties, we're publishing them today! There's not much to say about poet Alise Versella, whose work engages all five of your senses, that you won't feel for yourself in the very first line. As always, thank you for reading! The Derailleur Press Team GOLDEN SHOVEL POEM: GLAMOROUS GABRIEL AS THE SUIT OF CUPS
“holy as i will be, possessed as i am.” —Claire Schwartz, from “Behind the Mechitza” Gabriel. Boy child in an indigo dress, fluid as a fish and just as holy Behold, the family as rough sea in pursuit of empathy. When the world seems unclean, I Wash the laundry. Wring it free from mud like wry wrists that will Inherit the bruise. Lapis-lazuli-blue and fragile as pearls be The same ivory reflection that possessed Narcissus from the lake’s surface—he just wanted another man to love him as Autumn leaves love, the sun setting in the West, I Protest to dreams of drowned Abraham. Gabriel, let love converge with the flood and resuscitate you in the a.m. 1/21/2022 0 Comments Happy Endings, by Rachel RodmanDear Readers, Can you believe how cold it is out there? You'd think after a lifetime of cold weather we'd be used to it by now but every year winter sneaks up on us, puts its hands over our eyes and gleefully watches as we scramble to stay warm. The one bright spot during this dreary time is that being forced inside provides plenty of opportunity for reading and writing. This week we're delighted to share Rachel Rodman's Happy Endings, a poignant story told in vignettes about helplessness and hopefulness in the face of abandonment and trauma. As usual, we welcome you to read, share, and submit your own work to The Rail. Stay warm out there, and happy reading-- The Derailleur Press team Loss
When we found her, she had been alone for months. Her foster parents enrolled her in soccer. It would, we all thought, be a way of gently modifying her present associations with grass and open meadows. They also got her a dog, fluffy and white. But there remained a hollowness to her, a lean waiting. Her teachers saw it at school--the first school, after years of isolation, that she had ever been able to attend. I saw it during my site visits. “Bo Peep,” said her state-appointed psychiatrist gently, during their weekly therapy sessions. “Your sheep are never coming back.” Dear Readers, Welcome back! This week we have a pensive poem from past writer John Tustin. Please read and share, and consider submitting something yourself. Meanwhile, the Derailleur Press team is working hard on publishing our upcoming chapbook (available to preorder here) and planning the rest of 2022. Keep an eye out for some upcoming announcements! Stay safe, readers. The Derailleur Press team At this point The best I can hope for Is to feel good for a moment Or a minute Or perhaps a half an hour And Good Now Nearly always means A pleasant surprise Or a simple pleasure Like eating good food Or complete evacuation of the bowels. Right now, For instance, I got out of the hot shower And then into some clean clothes. It’s the best I’ve felt all day And I don’t know if that means My life has degraded Or that I’ve simplified my desires to the border Between enlightenment And imbecility. Sometimes I hold in my urine Until I’m about to burst For the delayed satisfaction of relief Or allow myself to hunger All day So that anything I eat Will taste like the ambrosia of Zeus. If that means this is almost the end For me Then I’ll just say goodbye now And then go piss Because since about line 15 My teeth have been just about swimming. John Tustin’s poetry has appeared in many disparate literary journals since 2009. fritzware.com/johntustinpoetry contains links to his published poetry online.
Happy New Year, Readers and Writers! It's rough out there, but here's hoping you had the chance to spend some time with loved ones in a safe and meaningful way. We're excited to start the year with a collection of six poems from Spanish writer Izaskun Gracia Quintana. Her poetry plays with space and percussive language to pull you in and keep you there. Thank you so much for your continuing support, and happy reading! The Derailleur Press Team we pronounce
we do unauthorized sentences floating in the ignorance of what counts and doesn’t reach us while we fear your next step and our discomfort how easy to evoke you and get lost on your stage how comfortable to impersonate the unknown and take care of what doesn’t exist or isn’t coherent or doesn’t explain your words beyond each expression we are experts in what we do not master where we aren’t wanted intruders annoying within this blurred frame until the next concoction and a new conspiracy 12/28/2021 0 Comments Alacrity, by George OliverDear Readers, Welcome to The Rail's last story of the year! We hope you're not yet tired of reading our thanks to our readers, writers, and supporters over the last two (!!) years because we're not tired of writing it. Today we have a coming-of-age story that is a thoughtful and sometimes tough read, following a student at a British prep school as he navigates adolescence, masculinity, and grief. As we careen toward 2022, we hope you are having a safe and rejuvenating winter. Happy reading, and Happy New Year! The Derailleur Press Team
Wuss. Wuss. Wuss. Wuss. You’re a sissy. Sissy. Wuss. Sissy. Don’t throw a hissy. Sissy. Wussy. Gav, stop being such a pussy. Don’t throw a hissy. You’re a wuss, you hear me? Gav, mate. You’re so fussy. Guys, it’s Gav the Wuss. Gav the pussy. Sissy. The fussy wussy sissy, throwing a hissy. Gav enjoys disappearing into his own interiority. Getting lost there. Spending hours, days, weeks digging around finding something he didn’t know he was looking for. He has to. It’s survivalist. Instinctual. Necessary. Comfortable in here, he can evade the daily looks of contempt en route from the changing room to the football pitch – soccer field, as Americans prefer. The perennial reminder that he doesn’t belong here, dressed up as collective external scorn. These thoughts come as continuous jets of water hammer the shower floor around him, strategically dodged by the hulking naked body seated beneath and behind the shower head – his, something reminds him. Dear Reader, We here at Derailleur Press hope you had a restful and meaningful holiday weekend! This week we're closing out our series on Intimacy with a story from Mattue Roth. This thoughtful piece examines the painful intimacy of prayer and tradition. We hope you've enjoyed reading these stories as much as we enjoyed selecting them for you. And if you loved what we have published so far, visit our store to preorder your copy of our upcoming fiction chapbook Late Stage. Happy reading! -The Derailleur Press Team 5.
A Hollywood backlot last week. I was there to visit a friend, who’d recently gotten a semi-regular job as a minor character on a major sitcom. Actually, she was my best friend’s girlfriend. But I was in L.A., and my friend wasn’t, and the girlfriend invited me to come to work with her. They were rehearsing, running through the same three-minute scene an infinity of times. I sat in the empty audience bleachers and watched them walk around a fake living room. I envied the ability to be able to do what they did, to rewind time again and again to make it perfect. Inside the hermetically-sealed warehouse, I got the sense the sun was going down. I went outside, to the hallway, and found a place to pray. Three steps back, three steps forward, I transformed that little area into a chamber for G-d to inhabit. I stood still and swayed back and forth. 12/20/2021 0 Comments Birthday Crashers, by Alan BarstowDear Reader, I hope today's story finds you well, or at the very least safe and cozy. We know it's especially hard to focus right now as we careen toward the holiday season with Covid still hanging over our heads like a big grey cloud. But since you're with us, we're very excited to share Birthday Crashers by Alan Barstow! Birthday Crashers explores emotional intimacy within a couple who are struggling with fertility issues as our main character gets lost among the pastries and partiers at his wife's nephew's fourth birthday party. And don't forget to PREORER our first chap of the new year, available here! Happy reading, and please take care-- The Derailleur Press Team It was Jess’s idea to arrive early, and now, Daniel could see, she didn’t know what to do.
“I could help with Nicolas,” she said. Daniel followed her eyes across the park, past the concrete picnic tables donned with blue plastic table cloths, past where a caterer positioned a three-layer cake and platters of croissants and pastries. He looked beyond where a Star Wars bouncy house inflated and some sort of black cardboard mashup duct-taped into a dome sat. Beyond all this Nicolas stood as stiff as C3P0. He was four years old today. Jess’s younger sister, Amy, crouched with a hand on her son’s shoulder, but the birthday boy’s eyes were locked on his Velcro shoes. He wasn’t frowning, but he wasn’t smiling, either. Daniel figured Amy was trying to psych him up for the party. He thought Jess should leave that to Amy. He knew better than to say that. “I could take Abigail,” Jess said. All chub and rolls and wispy, translucent hair, two-year-old Abigail sat balanced on Amy’s hip, gnawing on a teething necklace. Beads of saliva as fine as spiderwebs dangled from her sausage fingers. If Jess were to take her, Daniel thought, Abigail would sneer, Mama, want mama, like she were cussing. “I have to do something.” Daniel watched Jess watch her sister. Amy adjusted Abigail. She took Nicolas’s hand. She wore a flowing burnt orange maternity dress and cream knee-length sweater, a ready-to-burst baby belly falling to her knees as she crouched. Highlight reel worthy, Amy’s husband, Bill, had bragged to Daniel, mother of the millennium. |