The Cenacle | 109 | October 2019 | *Just Released*

[Cenacle]

The Cenacle | 109 | October 2019
Reading link: http://www.scriptorpress.com/cenacle/109.html
Download link: http://www.scriptorpress.com/cenacle/10 ... r_2019.pdf
[Size = 6.9 MB]

Hello everyone,

Here comes the just-released Cenacle | 109 | October 2019. This was the issue that came together while I was out job hunting; amazing it did, but the contributors to it are what make it good & worth doing, & worth your reading! Lots! of good writings & graphics! Contents include:

From Soulard’s Notebooks:
[Excerpt]
The traffic is moving swiftly along this highway to Boston. The bus I’m in is full to the last seat. I’m in the very back, next to a young fellow thumb-fucking his gadget. Most of the other passengers the same. I said hello to him when he sat down next to me. He smiled a “hello.” in reply, & then he, thumb, & gadget got down to business.

Feedback on Cenacle 108:
Tamara Miles’ “Same Moon Shining” passage about the neighbor’s house—which “burned down while I stood, crying into my phone”—touched me immensely. So many events in my tumultuous area in Israel have found me crying into my phone, crying into the horizon, helpless but to cry.
[Judih Haggai]

From the ElectroLounge Forums:
Post a Poem You Like!

Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage
by Lord Byron
There is the moral of all human tales;
’Tis but the same rehearsal of the past.
First freedom and then Glory—when that fails;
Wealth, vice, corruption,—barbarism at last.
[Jimmy Heffernan]

Notes from New England by Raymond Soulard, Jr.:
[Excerpt]

Job Hunting Journal
Coming out of the building, back exit, closest to train, come out this way a million times, tripped, crashed, hard, banged my cheek, arm, bent my glasses. Blood all over the ground. Two trips back inside to the men’s room before blood coagulated. An Uber driver consoling my sorry self on trip home. KD patching me up.

Poetry Journal by Sam Knot:
[Excerpt]
It’s only been a few years since I started thinking more about any kind of formality—and perhaps this has been as much a curse as anything—but I know in myself it has produced some better work, if only through my struggling with it—it has helped show me ways to ask “what is the shape of this poem?” if I need/want to—however it is so easy to get lost in fiddling with a poem and basically lose all perspective—for me this is the danger of considering any changes at all. Maybe experiences like this were what lead to Kerouac for instance saying “first thought best thought.” It’s nice then to have something to return to, an initial outpouring—and sometimes this just is the poem. Sometimes I work directly speaking or singing and record it, then work from that.

The Crocodile King of Belize (Prose) by Charlie Beyer:
[Excerpt]
Ramone has small man syndrome. He doesn’t top four-foot-eight inches tall, but acts like the Tasmanian devil when he’s boozed up and on the rage. He’s a clear case of a filthy rich, entitled, and spoiled little boy. The parents in Florida own Blunt Cigars, whose sales have quadrupled since it became popular to stuff them with marijuana and re-sell on the streets of Miami. They have a mansion on the coast near Coin Beach. Ramone has a sailboat in the Miami marina.

Poetry by Joe Ciccone:
[Excerpt]
like songs in the dark—
these memories of us nourishing

Secret Joy Amongst These Times: The History of Scriptor Press, 1995 to the Present
by Raymond Soulard, Jr.:
[Excerpt]
In short, the rich & powerful of this world never seem to suffer much, go hungry, sacrifice. As ever, the poor & working class, of nearly whatever country, race, religion, nation-state, are pressed to make do with less, give back whatever buffer they might have, display their good souls & good citizenships to feed the crises their masters have contrived. Feed it mostly by cowing to the truths of a world system built by haves, on the backs of the have-nots, fueled by the blood of their labor’s years, & acquiescence to the belief that inequality is just.

Poetry by Judih Haggai:
[Excerpt]
when all is chaos
breathing in 4, out 4
smile and repeat

Same Moon Shining (Memoir Excerpts) by Tamara Miles:
For many years, as I have written, my father was an invisible man to me. I wasn’t quite sure he existed or had a voice other than in memory. I knew his eyes had been blue, that he had been handsome and stubborn. I knew that I had halfway loved and halfway feared him, that he had divided me in two. It’s kind of a pitiful thing when a woman of fifty still wants to have been carried around in the pool by a father who was sunny, who would never let her drown—but how could an invisible man be a lifeguard?

Poetry by Martina Newberry:
[Excerpt]
I could avoid food when I smoked—
pared down to ninety-nine pounds one year.
Loose-tongued, throaty, mysterious, cool––
that’s the image of me that formed when the smoke spiraled—
then cleared.

States of Mercy (Excerpts from a Novel) by Ace Boggess:
It’s then I realized just how drunk I was. I’d gone beyond the tingling, the flush, the dizziness, to the point where I felt comfortable with my new condition. Every step came slowly and seemed to cover a mile without getting me anywhere. “That’s enough for tonight,” I mumbled. I sat down and leaned back against some panels, then stared at the stars for a while until I felt as though I were among them.

Many Musics (Poetry) by Raymond Soulard, Jr.:
[Excerpt]
Not my master, Creatures never do,
but a teacher, my tender. He taught
me in every way possible what tenders I
most needed to know: kindness most
binds. I often resisted sometimes the
far ends of his teachings, when
kindness seemed second to
self-preservation, or revenge.
A shake of his mane, a correcting
growl. He insisted me. Pressed me again & again.

Guapulo (Travel Journal) by Nathan D. Horowitz:
[Excerpt]
Then we bus passengers drifted into a restaurant and presented the cards at the counter in exchange for a weak, sweet coffee, and a soothing sandwich of soft white cheese on a soft white roll. We stood around eating and drinking quietly, letting the coffee help dissolve the bread and cheese in our mouths, then filed back onto the bus and fell back to sleep as we rolled off again—plunging up into the dark mountains as if on a jet plane stumbling over turbulence into the stratosphere.

Poetry by Colin James:
[Excerpt]
An unexceptional man visits the estuary
every day at low tide. I, on the other hand,
sit atop our wrap-around porch,
refreshing my thoughts with a few beers.

Notes On Private Property & Civilization by Jimmy Hefferman:
[Excerpt]
Let cultural evolution run for a few hundred years, or maybe a thousand, and land will start being divided into parcels. It is easy to see how the existence of such parcels of land could naturally lead to owning cattle on the land, and needing water for the cattle, and administering the area to keep it all straight. And voilà, you have the beginnings of civilization.

Poetry by Gregory Kelly:
[Excerpt]
(a) difficult task:human.i am no birdno bird
(i) donot fly.the air
(i) donot fly.the air for lungs. i breathebut
(i) donot fly.

Bags End Book #14: Cackle! Cackle! Cackle! A Shenanigans Fantastika! by Algernon Beagle
[Excerpt]
“Dear Algernon, it is time again here at the Creature Common for a Royal Thumbs Spectacular. The Royal Thumbs produce the grandest of productions here, in the old school Vaudeville style. I know that is a lot of words for you, dear pal, so I will simply invite you & all of your Bags End friends to gather on Saturday night in the Bags End Auditorium. It will be something to see!”

Classic Poetry by Robert Frost
[Excerpt]
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Jehrico and Chico and the Western Conservation Society, Inc. [Fiction] by Tom Sheehan
[Excerpt]
Chico’s heart fluttered, while composed Jehrico, the great trader and elder of the pair, remained calm, measuring in his own way all the sudden changes around them. He still managed a degree of difference between him and his student of recovery of earthly things, the one-time orphan boy.

Poetry by John Echem:
[Excerpt]
My muse is heartache—
Osanana.

Session Games People Play: A Manual for the Use of LSD by Lisa Bieberman
[Excerpt]
So you’re going to take LSD. You’ve got some, hopefully from a reliable source. You’ve heard a variety of reports about it, some of which must have attracted you. You have an idea of the kind of experience you’re looking for, but you’re apprehensive lest you have a bum trip.

Labyrinthine [a new fixtion] by Raymond Soulard, Jr.:
[Excerpt]
Now he’s outside, left his seat & his ancient dufflebag & gone out to the smoking area, & he’s on all fours on the ground, among the butts, in the dirt. He’s . . . drawing in the dirt? I leave my loved ratty old bookbag next to his & go out there, just a doorway under an old green & gold awning, a bucket for butts some use, & I bring my book & some paper & a pen, & I don’t know what I’m doing or him, & I like this, it excites me—

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Peace,
Raymond

[judih]

looks like a fantastic issue. So rich and varied.
Thanks, Ray, for including my humble offerings

[Cenacle]

Thanks! I would invite all Studio 8 writers to look at this issue, and at scriptorpress.com, and consider submitting work for consideration