The Rail
Fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from our favorite emerging writers
10/15/2021 1 Comment It's the Days, by John TustinIt’s not the myriad prisons
The walls that are everywhere The men of terror The women of no sympathy It’s not the calls unreturned Or the mirror spitting back at you Even the sparrows falling to their deaths On fallow ground Beaks broken upon the weeds and the dust How the music becomes nothing But memories of something With the decades listening It’s not the alcohol It’s not the job The search for work That grinds one down To paste It’s not the rituals Of eating, earning And losing With The piss dribbling At 4AM From a middle aged cock With a middle aged prostate It’s not even the vacancy of emotions Meeting the logjam of words That coagulate in the river Tepid with nonchalance Meaning nothing As we count shekels And lose them gambling On luck On love It’s not even the inevitability Of the death Of a star No It’s the endless days That become nights Of threadbare sanity That Decimate the soul Alone Whether solitary Or in a crowded room It’s just The days And how They keep Coming Toward us Alone As we draw our cards Waiting for the shreds of love Among the scrapple In the slaughter Waiting for love Waiting for the end As failures And killers of love Waiting for The death Of a star Scrambling For the shreds In the scrapple
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I’m wrapped up in your arms, wearing nothing but a thong Every time we move some part of me ends up in your mouth. This time it’s my nipple and you suck on me like you need nothing else. I hold you and savour the feeling of being worshipped. Your body is a temple, I’ve heard people say. And when the heat rises over us, you prostrate yourself before mine Bend low and drink deep from my holy waters Like it gives you vigour purpose life. You tell me we don’t need to leave this bed. We skip classes calls meals showers. We follow each other to the kitchen the toilet the mirror Unable to bear a moment without skin on skin. Your eyes linger greedy all over me. When I begin to cover up you peel the cloth right off me And when you stiffen for the hundredth time in these past few days? weeks? months? It is my turn to worship. I make offering of myself my soul my blood And rapt, you accept. No other possibility exists. You can’t imagine a world in which you would give this up. We drain our bodies into peace every waking minute. A moment finally comes when the peace lingers even after dreams. You take up my hand and we know. We feel it A shaking dread. The honeymoon will soon be over. In absolute defiance we go out and you finger me in the cab. We barely make it through dinner. You slide your tongue over the sashimi, I squeeze my legs together in an almost painful anticipation. We wonder why we ever left the warmth of your bed How we can ever stand the separateness of the outside. We make no conversation. There is only baited silence, Desperate, longing gazes and whispered promises of the ecstatic undoing to come. We decide to walk home and the moonlight washes over us in a cold relief. Suddenly we feel powerful, like it’s us against the world and there’s just no contest. When you’ve faced demons alone, one trusted ally is an army. We amaze each other in tiny moments, simply because we’re paying attention. Maybe the end of the beginning won’t be so bad. Maybe our luck changed when we met each other. Maybe we’ll make it. The long haul. You gulp and I shudder. It’s too big, so uncertain. Can the path of shooting stars align? Or are we facing collision? A stellar explosion. The stink of fear rises from the river and we quicken our pace. Wind whips my hair and pulls your jacket open. Why did we ever leave? We turned this fantasy thing real. Too real. I look up at you, scared to see. Don’t regret me, I think. You look back at me and something surges in your chest. Fuck, you think And you kiss me. You call me beautiful, and the dread lingers between us. It circles casually around our fingers between our hearts But it reminds us of what’s here and unspoiled And now it’s even more urgent To know and feel everything everything everything. We race inside before real life can steal any more from us. We cling to each other and burn But now there are pauses that hadn’t been there before- Uneasy flickers. We swallow them. It makes us sluggish. It forces us slow. The deliberate motion is new It entrances us. Something else is different. A notion conceived. Something about a slow burn or a slow fall doesn’t seem half bad anymore. Christie Borely is an attorney and emerging writer/poet from the twin islands of Trinidad and Tobago. Her multi-ethnic heritage is made up of East Indian, West African, and French Creole ancestry and is characteristic of the ethnically diverse population of the Caribbean nation. She aspires to tell vivid, poignant stories that convey a philosophy of inner peace and strength in community. Her short story Grass is Greener has recently been published in Rebel Women Lit literary magazine. She loves meeting new writers and readers. Find her on IG/CH: @christieborely
10/1/2021 0 Comments Sunlight on Flesh, by John GreySunlight on flesh - the blood knows it’s there – even the marble statue thaws a little – (did her naked toe just move?) – your kiss - similar effect – even the memory, that shopping aisle of enjoined lips – the rose garden of fluttering color and thornless stalks – or the ascending stairs where the room at the top reaches down to pull me up – one shadow slinks away – another dissolves – a departing bird leaves its song behind – the field is free for me to sing it. John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Sheepshead Review, Poetry Salzburg Review and Hollins Critic. Latest books, Leaves On Pages and Memory Outside The Head are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Lana Turner and International Poetry Review.
9/24/2021 0 Comments Jesus went to Hell, I hear, in Sunday, One day when I'm dead I'll go to Heaven, & One day I'll be dead says my Sunday School, by Gale AcuffJesus went to Hell, I hear, in Sunday
School, I mean that that's where I heard that but He didn't hang there long, He worked His way out and up to Heaven and I wonder if when I croak I'll do likewise, go to Hell for a space even if I'm lucky enough to score Heaven, which I doubt, and have a look-see maybe at the torment and torture that might have been for me, then an angel whisks me away to Heaven and if I know me then in Paradise I won't be able to get out of my head or mind or but most likely soul Satan and Hellfire and losers and Perdition. Maybe the best Good Place is back on Earth. No Epilogues
Johnny, decades on & your returning occurs without me seeing you anywhere save in the heart, the spirit's boomerang for great love released as energy reverberant in wavelengths to hands which held, shared in that creation in the first place. Memory holds all of that as well as imagination keeping track, pacing our separate quadrants for when words are put down in love, committed to space on paper with passion that love supersedes denouements, no matter how messy or clean. Closure is no more than a rosebud then, tight in its secret scents, but still capable of unfurling: ripe spiral of petals layered connected right back down to their source. After I left, in the first months stretching on into years, their heaviness was often nightmarish as if woven of your fragrant flesh, the folds of limbs pinning, holding me in, lying on top & I having again & again to explain & convince we were no longer together, in a threesome with alcoholism, though I'd still wake as if gasping, fighting off the bed spins of being uncontrollably drunk. Even when news of your death showed up, those accidental beans spilled by an acquaintance L.P.N. bringing my father his nursing home meds, the dreams did not stop nor do I ever expect your consciousness not to pop in, occasionally coincide with mine though these visits have become more of ease, a subliminal shared joke that we both know how I am on to your tricks. You are Connie Francis again, the Connie sensation so many knew you as, half mad & hilarious with your drag's bit blowsy craft taken so seriously between the vodka - (it's scentless) - mixed with Gatorade - (it hydrates) to combat nerves of some PSTD strain for broken-into hotel rooms & hidden rapists to forever escape. They'd become terror desperately, valiantly turned again on its head with "Stupid Cupid" lyrics for where the boys were with someone waiting with no lipstick on his collar telling tales you'd have to chide with long elbow-length gloves, a gown of sparkling black taffeta & wig of equal shimmer tiara-headband held. Ah, but how you shaved everywhere for that fantasy, pulling stockings into hungry love-for-sale heels & I watched fearing for you, small boy still before his mirror lip-synching to the boxed turntable, the spell of the vinyl record whirlpool, while wanting your dreams to become real. Johnny, your beautiful medleys spot-light shine from P. Town dives still, tinsel echoes of Grizabella glamour now off-stage, & no longer dragging the need to be touched in a show-stopping torch song for you are Dorothy & the friends of, barfly by barfly, clicking the ruby slippers to at last have found yourself an Amazing Grace salvation, with mercy for the wretched, in some place like home. ice storm, power outage, rear window
water weight too much to bear / limbs snapping like bone like brittle like a bite / fall or bellyflop or widow-make onto an suv that’s not mine / but i’m watching / waiting for the other to drop / any awake late like me / candlelit and torched and watching / waiting / moving cars / moving to car to charge / dead phones like mine / seen unto each other like for the first time / literally for the first time / smokers insomniacs new-parents nocturnals light-sleepers / every-day-like-it’s doomsday-preppers / the howling dog who usually only howls during daylight / wind howling / waiting / trees cracking like sleep-crusted eyelids / watching / just neighborly things One pours aromatic bitters And questions this existence, fraught, Ever fragile in its battle to continue, But on as that torturous aroma lingers Does dark liquor come to engulf That timeless dance where incantations Are uttered and intent is set To enlarge that primal jaunt Where beating hearts find momentary breath As golden tongues descend, And burn that rigid skin With passionate caress, But intensity draws incantations Deeper in receptors Of that hear the tremor of thrust To a tempo robust, and fixated On those darting marbles Whose maroon gaze Uncovers that fleshy facade To find the source of such vigour, Where amorous incantations manifest Into the carnality of blind lust, A hook-up, or so it's called, Distanciation I call it- Dystopian. Anthony is a mixed-race poet & writer whose work tends to focus on social inequality throughout late-modern society. Anthony travels frequently and has spent most of his life in Kuwait jostling between the UK & America. Anthony's work has been published 140 times. Anthony has 1 published chapbook titled The Great Northern Journey. Twitter/Instagram: @anthony64120 https://arsalandywriter.com/ Anthony is the Co-Eic of Fahmidan Journal.
7/23/2021 0 Comments Alchemy, by Emma WellsSwirls shift, rotate in sympathy, lacing threads like weavers, spinning, both inside, (and out); hazy moonshine feeds biting bones satiating in darkened sunshine. Rivulets of sadness spill… synthesising with skin; misty layers fold bandaging breath, suckling nocturnal morsels as rearing piglets – snuffling deep in fleshy layers, proud as truffle towers. Clouds of sentience puff, dispel… Semblances of consciousness taint peripheral memories as grandma’s rhubarb pie - custard-comfort, sugary-crust soft. A maroon edge wavers, sound-wave happy, drinking in Sunday afternoons. Liquids flow, stroking surfaces like new lovers: silly smooth, clean shaven, perfume-pungent. Desire swallows whole, chewing tendrils of memories like an obliterated octopus; its talons stuck on empty glass like an absent reflection. I fold, enveloping decadence, inhaling siphoned fumes; breath in alchemy as a held mistress – heady notes drift, sway like a tempestuous storm; misty foam coats my thoughts in a pretence cleansing Emma Wells is an English teacher and a mother to a six year old daughter. She writes poetry and short stories as she enjoys the creative freedom that it allows. She has been writing creatively for nearly two years. She has poetry printed in The World’s Greatest Anthology, The League of Poets, The Lake, The Beckindale Poetry Journal, Dreich Magazine, Drunken Pen Writing, Visual Verse, Littoral Magazine and as part of the Ledbury Poetry Festival.
Saying “I love you” to someone who can’t hear doesn’t count It’s there, hidden beneath an olive branch Withdrawn, and all too quickly withered A lost voice foundered in a remote valley Where past transactions echo silently Never dormant in the minds of the recipient Joyous, a prowling beast of joyous occasion But a vacuous space holds for most Spoken words displaced Laid to rest at the spark of a thought Too late to utter, the moment passed “I love you”, said In a whisper in the car on the way home When you passed After the door clicked back into place, Your perfume dragged quickly behind In anger, sarcastically thrown On repeat, repeat, repeat before you answer the phone During rehearsal in a teenage bedroom, A tragic comedy coming too soon Me, to you The great unknown Lee Waddington currently lives in West Yorkshire, UK. Lee has a Masters’ Degree in Applied Sport & Exercise Psychology from Staffordshire University and has worked for several Premier League soccer clubs including; Manchester United, Nottingham Forest, Blackburn Rovers, Manchester City and Burnley. A keen writer for over twenty-five years, Lee writes in several formats from short stories to educational sports writing and poetry. Lee likes to spend most of his spare time with his partner, Anna and their family of five daughters. He also likes to travel, read, watch soccer and, of course, write.
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