The Cenacle | 124 | April 2024 | 29th Anniversary Issue

[Cenacle]

The Cenacle | 124 | April 2024 | 29th Anniversary Issue
https://scriptorpress.com/cenacle/124
(Size = 13.6 MB)

Hello everyone,

Here comes the just-released Cenacle | 124 | April 2024. Returning to the desired quarterly issue cadence that has been missing for the past couple of years. It was hard doing this issue without the usual many years’ involvement of my dear poet friend, the late Judih Weinstein Haggai, but her poetry features in this issue nonetheless, & will remain so in each issue ever on.

Thus far, 2024 for the human world has been a fairly dark one. The global Pandemic has not ended, though millions risk sickness & death for themselves & others by choosing to join in a kind of mass amnesia about the crisis. Meanwhile, the climate crisis continues to get the same kind of hostile indifference. The genocide in Gaza goes on unabated by any of the many powerful & supposedly democratic nations of the world. And a likely felon has jazzed the US electoral process, its weaknesses & flaws among its many strengths, to be within reach of again taking over &, as he has vowed, taking revenge.

I can’t tell you that this literary journal operates toe to toe on the global scale to oppose these various human catastrophes, but I can say that if we don’t seek Beauty, & Nature, & look beyond the petty fuckeries of the current day, we are much more likely to be lost than if we find a way to do this.

This fine anniversary issue features new poetry by Tamara Miles, Martina Reisz Newberry, Colin James, Sam Knot, Jimmy Heffernan, Judih Weinstein Haggai, & myself.

Also new fiction by Timothy Vilgiate, Algernon Beagle, & myself. And classic fiction from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

And new prose pieces by Nathan D. Horowitz, Charlie Beyer, & myself.

There is also new graphic artwork by AbandonView, Epi Rogan, Louis Staeble, Kassandra Soulard, Sam Knot, Tamara Miles, & Nathan D. Horowitz.

Contents of this new issue include:

From Soulard’s Notebooks [Excerpt]

I find myself leaning back often into 3 questions that I believe most influence human psychology & human culture:

1) Why are we here?
2) Where are we from?
3) What are we supposed to be doing?

* * * * * *

Feedback on Cenacle 123 [Excerpt]

I made it to the first poem by Judih Weinstein Haggai, sank into it, breathed it, needed it, and couldn’t go further into the issue yet. But it’s beautiful. And Kassandra Soulard’s cover photo: wow.
(Tamara Miles)

* * * * * *

From the ElectroLounge Forums:
Selections from Unknot 24, Part 1[Excerpt]

A project that I expect to work on for the rest of my life and never finish is a kind of art project playing with meaning making and the first few layers of knots, so this is all part of that really. I suppose it is a way to give a kind of focus or even kind of “abstract grounding” to some other kind of activity which isn’t necessarily even directly related to or about it.
(Sam Knot)

* * * * * *

Haiku from a Silent Retreat (7/31/2021) [Excerpt]
by Judih Weinstein Haggai

Everybody!
Are you everybody?
I’m not either

* * * * * *

Notes from New England:
Dream Raps, Volume Thirteen [Excerpt]
by Raymond Soulard, Jr.

Now that my friends are gone, the very shy Creatures who sometimes visit my hovel begin to come out, sniffing friendly their hellos. Accept my offer to cluster with me under the blankets, them being cold as ever when outside of the White Woods. White Bunny, Hedgedyhog, Peppermint Bears, Kittees & their Friend Fish. Alvinarah Poesy, & his dear friend Naria Narwhal. Even that cackling little Imp is under there somewhere. They never stay long, but I love them passing through. They’re excited about the Rutabaga Festival & Fleastock in the White Woods, I’m guessing.

* * * * * *

Becoming Archaeology: A Eulogy for Living Moor. (Part Two) [Excerpt]
by Sam Knot

It moves me more than any painting
or poem, seems to encode more meaning,
personal & planetary, than any other art,
this simple offering. This intricate gift.

* * * * * *

Notes Toward Many Musics [Excerpt]
by Raymond Soulard, Jr.

I believe a Narrative should always lead with the best it has, its most potent moment or image or the like. And let this lead set its standard. When I think of the Narrative options for these poems, I come back every time to starting from the start. These poems build on years & years of the work it took to get the six Brother-Heroes reunited rightly, after telling their unique stories as rightly as possible too. I did the best thinking & writing that I could.

* * * * * *

Poetry by Martina Newberry [Excerpt]

Tall on the dirty stage,
from my notebook I conferred
my poems. No time limit,
no faces, noises of shifting
dust and cars out there somewhere,
I read for many minutes,
emoting here and there,
hands rising and falling,
singing through some.

* * * * * *

Rivers of the Mind (A Novel) [Excerpt]
by Timothy Vilgiate

I could not help but fear that he’d attack me as I laid there; I lost count of how many times I got up to check my locks or to peek underneath the bed. I turned over and over, rocking the mattress like an unsteady boat, straining to keep my eyes shut. It was no use. Midnight came, and I was still awake; my hair matted over my irritated face, my blanket clutched in between my hands over my mouth as I tried to stop myself from sobbing. But I couldn’t let it see me cry. I couldn’t let it even see me blink.

* * * * * *

Poetry by Tamara Miles [Excerpt]

A lion’s music—a carnival of sound, beyond the roar of reserve, park, zoo, circus, and
safari, the wild kingdom beyond the definition of safe and unsafe, cruel or kind, in
sub-Saharan Africa, or in India, Gir forest, where the heart beat and drum beat and
incense are heavy.

* * * * * *

The Lagoon of the Air Goblins (Travel Journal) [Excerpt]
by Nathan D. Horowitz

I’m dehydrated from the sun today. I haven’t rehydrated. My hydration’s out of wack. It seems an eternity, maybe two, since I ordered a glass of papaya juice. Inside the café, mysterious café things may be happening, involving blenders and workforce and fruit and power. Time’s ticking by and it sounds like trees falling into a river. I glance at the red and white checkered tablecloth and remember I’ve always hated red and white checkered patterns. Serafín the educator said he would meet me here to tell me about the Secoya cosmovision, and he isn’t showing up.

* * * * * *

Poetry by Colin James [Excerpt]

Episodically craved by adolescents,
Prometheus displays his tats
behind The Dollar Store in Bonita.
The one with the plastic pillars.

* * * * * *

Mad Jack (Prose) [Excerpt]
by Charlie Beyer

We were longhaired teenage criminals. I looked like Jesus and my best buddy had flaming red shoulder-length hair, the devil to rival my divine look. Scott the Red. We were all hair, except Mad Jack (or Bob, as I knew him), who was as shaved as a plastic bag. We all sat in the car outside the 7-11 in the night rain. Blue smoke trickled out of the cracked window. Inside was a haze of marijuana smoke tainted with opium. We were high and crazed.

* * * * * *

Poetry by Jimmy Heffernan [Excerpt]

The moment to which we have access
So Nature can “see” through time
And what is this but awareness?
A tunneling from the immediate future
Back into the present

* * * * * *

Bags End Book #21: What is the Creature Carnival? Part 3 (Fiction) [Excerpt]
by Algernon Beagle

It makes me remember how our teacher Mister Owl in Bags End teached how different places have their different ways of thinking & telling. So if you’re gonna watch a Creature production, whether it’s the Carnival, or a Grand Production, or this time both, you’re gonna be in 4or a good crazy ride.

* * * * * *

The Hound of the Baskervilles (Classic Fiction) [Excerpt]
by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Mr. Sherlock Holmes, who was usually very late in the mornings, save upon those not infrequent occasions when he was up all night, was seated at the breakfast table. I stood upon the hearth-rug and picked up the stick which our visitor had left behind him the night before. It was a fine, thick piece of wood, bulbous-headed, of the sort which is known as a “Penang lawyer.” Just under the head was a broad silver band nearly an inch across. “To James Mortimer, M.R.C.S., from his friends of the C.C.H.,” was engraved upon it, with the date “1884.” It was just such a stick as the oldfashioned family practitioner used to carry—dignified, solid, and reassuring.

* * * * * *

Labyrinthine [A New Fixtion] [Excerpt]
by Raymond Soulard, Jr.

I’m distracted just as this strange fellow appears on stage with some kind of tool in his hand. He is very fancily dressed, some kind of home-made tuxedo? Or one sewn from many scraps? And he starts to recite a poem, I think, in a tongue I don’t know, when something distracts me.

* * * * * *

Peace,
Raymond Soulard, Jr.
Scriptor Press New England
https://scriptorpress.com
editor@scriptorpress.com