The Cenacle | 123 | December 2023 | *Just Released*

[Cenacle]

The Cenacle | 123 | December 2023
https://scriptorpress.com/cenacle/123

Hello everyone,

Here comes the just-released Cenacle | 123 | December 2023.

This issue was months in the making, way more than usual, like the previous one was. And so its release would be a reason for elation, ordinarily.

But it’s not. Not in the least. It is a really good issue, as usual, as is detailed below, but far more importantly is that the horrific world of war has intervened to take the life of the long-time Cenacle contributor, poet Judih Weinstein Haggai. My dear, dear friend of many years who, along with her husband Gadi, was killed on the first day of the now-ongoing Israeli-Palestinian war.

Though I have many, many opinions on this war, these are not of point here. What I will say is that Judih was a woman of peace, Art, & love. She was a dear soul. She wrote beautiful poetry. She & her husband did not deserve to die so horribly. I am sad beyond any worthwhile words to tell right now of her loss. Even if some words do eventually come, the sadness will never leave.

This issue was created in the several months during which her fate was unknown, & so many of its contents allude to her as though she might return home safely. I suppose it stands as a kind of testament to the hope people have in situations like these, where the fate of a loved one is unknown. I choose to release this issue because the hope people held out bespeaks their deep love for Judih. A memorial issue will come in 2024.

That all said (& I wish I could say something better about all this, but I cannot), I can note that the issue contains some of her final poems, & photographs, over the months leading to her tragic death on October 7, 2023. She was living the life she chose & loved to the end of her days, & this includes her fine poetry & graphic artwork.

This issue also features new poetry by Tamara Miles, Martina Reisz Newberry, Colin James, Sam Knot, Nathan D. Horowitz, Jimmy Heffernan, & myself.

Also new fiction by Timothy Vilgiate, Algernon Beagle, & myself. And classic fiction from The Arabian Nights.

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

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

Contents of this new issue include:

From Soulard’s Notebooks [Excerpt]

No plans for this piece this time. No letter to Obama like years past. No Anniversary note for the journal. I don’t always have a plan, but what I rarely have is so much reluctance to write it.

* * * * * *

Feedback on Cenacle 122 [Excerpt]

Epi Rogan’s photos pull me so deeply into them that the desire to stay inside them is nearly overwhelming.
(Martina Reisz Newberry)

* * * * * *

From the ElectroLounge Forums:
Recent Poundings of the Keys by Nathan D. Horowitz [Excerpt]

Man, you’ve really got me thinking about the concept of meaningful hand gestures, in terms of the possibility of there being a/any meaningless one/s. I’ve gotten as far as: if there aren’t any meaningless hand gestures (which was my first impulse), can there be any meaningful ones?
(Sam Knot)

* * * * * *

Poetry by Judih Weinstein Haggai [Excerpt]

what’s good is good
when you do something, do it
DNA wisdom

* * * * * *

Notes from New England:
Job Hunting Journal
July 13, 2023 to November 8, 2023
by Raymond Soulard, Jr. [Excerpt]

Another commonly said wisdom is that “shit happens.” As in, nothing can predict it, just sucks sometimes. My response is to stretch that thought out like Play-Doh to read: “when shit happens, make sure you happen back.” Keep that in mind, if it helps.

* * * * * *

Becoming Archaeology: A Eulogy for Living Moor. by Sam Knot [Excerpt]

I see the clothes I want to wear
walking on the moor.
Shaggy hair, familiar:
Horned & wild & naturally styled.
Wearing its own skin to leather,
& wearing the rough rocks as well.

* * * * * *

Many Musics (Poetry) by Raymond Soulard, Jr. [Excerpt]

In one obscure corner of the too-many here,
a ragged figure sits, soft armchair of cracks & dust.
I slowly approach, & see he cradles in grasp
a strange pot, & grows from it a long green plant, tendril-y,
draping. And upon this beautiful plant is a
very large Caterpillar, with the most delicate features.

* * * * * *

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

Meekly, she comes closer, and gives me a hug, trying to comfort me. A reasonable reaction, I guess, to learning about someone’s experience of decades of imprisonment in a psychic prison. I would have been a flower child if I’d been alive back in her time, she knows. She can imagine sharing a joint with me in the back of her friend’s van, driving through Arizona, or dropping acid out in the National Forest around a campfire with me. She wishes she could have known me before she died, and she wishes she had been kinder to me, now that she can see what I’ve been through.

* * * * * *

Poetry by Martina Newberry [Excerpt]

The flawless loneliness of the twisted sheet,
the truth standing over there by the closet,
waiting.

* * * * * *

Dialogue on the Poetic Process by Jimmy Heffernan [Excerpt]

It’s as if God set up a computer simulation program, then let it evolve on its own. So that what happens has an origin in some higher power, but that that higher power is not actually responsible for what happens in Nature. “We hight Earthly mammals, the Holy empanel” just means we’re named Earthly mammals, and we’re pretty humble down here, but there is a holy thread—and holy beings—in existence at much deeper levels of the universe, yet counter-intuitively they are still in oblique contact with our dimension.

* * * * * *

Secret Joy Amongst These Times:
The History of Scriptor Press, 1995 to the Present
by Raymond Soulard, Jr. [Excerpt]

From Soulard’s Notebooks, written 12/12/12, was the newest piece in the issue, just a few days before its JG debut. In it, I’m feeling hopeful about several major events of the concluding year: Obama’s re-election as US president; marijuana’s legalization in Colorado & Washington State; gay marriage getting legalized in Maine, Maryland, & Washington State . . . .

These victories mattered, matter still, even in these darker days of the ongoing Pandemic & accelerating climate change. The ballot box can be a powerful force for liberation.

* * * * * *

Poetry by Tamara Miles [Excerpt]

Parvati, blessed fox, has curled to rest
upon your heart. Out of your breath,
hymns rise for her, vermilion, woman
crowned with rubies.

* * * * * *

The Brain Claim [Prose] by Charlie Beyer [Excerpt]

All these questions are easy to answer and placate the government. I answer everything and run it back by Bob. Of course he freaks at a number of things, like the plan to shit in a bucket and an unjustified worry about the trees. Anything I discuss, he confutes and is disagreeable with. My abused brain was thinking that he wanted me to run the show, but it is like asking a kid if I can eat his Halloween candy. I get him to shut up and I mail the whole package off to Lund. Wait two weeks. Then three. Bob is shitting little green nickels again. It is now mid-March.

* * * * * *

Writer's Notebook by Gregory Kelly [Excerpt]

Because I cannot choose a side. Because the only picture that comes to mind. Decades later. Decades gone. Is this little boy I never knew. Who’d never chosen a side. But ended up the one that died.

* * * * * *

Bags End Book #21: What is the Creature Carnival? Part 2 by Algernon Beagle [Excerpt]

As much as I love mah native homeland called Bags End, & all of its nice & weird com4orts, I am lucky too as a beagleboy journalist to have good reason to travel to other places to get good stories 4or mah beloved newspaper.

* * * * * *

Waiting for the Ranchera to Poza Honda by Nathan D. Horowitz [Travel Journal] [Excerpt]
The face in the photo, red with achiote face paint and ember light, is puffing a handrolled cigar and contemplating the viewer through its smoke with candor and inspiration. I had enjoyed the drinker’s vibe without knowing who he was.


* * * * * *

Poetry by Colin James: [Excerpt]

I have an acquaintance
who has a friend who has
devised these ingenious little nets
for catching poems,
usually on a summer night,
but occasionally during
blustery winter gales.

* * * * * *

The Story of Sindbad the Sailor from The Arabian Nights (Classic Fiction): [Excerpt]

I returned to my reason and said to myself, “In this voyage, I repent to the Almighty God with a sincere repentance, and I will never again embark on travel, nor mention it, nor even think of it, for the rest of my life.” I continued to implore the Almighty God, and to weep, recalling my former days of play and pleasure and cheer and contentment and happiness.

* * * * * *

Labyrinthine by Raymond Soulard, Jr.: [Excerpt]

Working for a living seems a distraction from what matters in life. I used to think of it as grounding me, keeping me in touch with the world. Now I’ve more come to see most of the human world as meager. Repetitive. Selfish. Myopic. As much as I never write enough, it’s ever what I wish to do. Art is all that matters to me. In its myriad forms & ways.

* * * * * *

Respond with your feedback here — or by email at editor@scriptorpress.com

Peace,
Raymond