The Cenacle | 125 | Summer 2024 *Just Released*

[Cenacle]

The Cenacle | 125 | Summer 2024
https://scriptorpress.com/cenacle/125
(Size = 11.8 MB)

Hello everyone,

Here comes the just-released Cenacle | 125 | Summer 2024. Continuing to return to the desired quarterly issue cadence that has been missing for the past couple of years. More to go, for that goal to be met in 2024.

This is the first of a number of Scriptor Press New England publications that will be released within the next month or so. Jump-starting a number of projects with new releases this autumn.

This fine new issue features new poetry by Tamara Miles, Martina Reisz Newberry, Colin James, 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 Sam Knot, Nathan D. Horowitz, Charlie Beyer, & myself.

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

Contents of this new issue include:

From Soulard’s Notebooks [Excerpt]

I endorse Kamala Harris & Tim Walz for the next President & Vice President of the U.S. I feel they will bring back intelligence, & empathy, & a basic respect for democracy so threatened these recent years.

* * * * * *

Feedback on Cenacle 124 [Excerpt]

That cover by Kassandra Soulard: Wow! What an incredible and inspirational cover for this 29th Anniversary Issue. One can get lost in aloneness. But this rather stark picture is contemplation itself. This begs consideration of one’s rocky place here on this watery planet. (Louis Staeble)

* * * * * *

From the ElectroLounge Forums:
Selections from Unknot 24, Part 2 [Excerpt]

I didn’t particularly think of this project as anything new. It was just the thought of combining photos from my day with perhaps photos of my notebook (where most of my writing is happening this year)—but then it sort of “showed me what it is.” In a way it has a strange unity, and says more for itself than I could probably say about it. “Multiple exposure”—when I thought of it in terms of a modern version of that old technique—that seemed to say something in itself, for instance. (Sam Knot)

* * * * * *

Haiku While on Retreat (March 2023) [Excerpt]
by Judih Weinstein Haggai

many thoughts
rowdy and impatient
calm down as i watch

* * * * * *

Notes from New England:
History of the No Borders Free Bookstore, 1999-2024 [Excerpt]
by Raymond Soulard, Jr.

Art brings edification & entertainment to the many people in great need of these. No profit has been or ever will be sought from these titles. A higher moral purpose is at stake: to make people happy, encourage them to keep trying, show them they are not alone with their struggles & woes, & that Art is there is heal, and that there are people who want to make sure its healing powers are spread as far & as wide as possible.

* * * * * *

Poetry by Martina Newberry [Excerpt]

So, the moon hovers,
and we here below pull it over us,
imagine it soft,
when in truth,
it’s dense
as a mango dum dum.

* * * * * *

Writer’s Notebook by Sam Knot [Excerpt]

I am growing horns. Even if this turns out not to be the case, I will reserve an aspect of it, acknowledge that even if it occurred in what we call “some way,” even if it seems only to have been something like a guest that my mind briefly entertained—well, I will allow that it walks the earth. This person like me, except with horns, with horns like the tusks of wild boar, little tusk-like curves growing out the bone of his sensitive temples. I expect for me they will just turn out to be strangely symmetrical insect bites I got when I slept in a tree. Probably the kind of thing that happens to silly children who ask silly questions concerning the likelihood of they themselves having an outside. I expect for me they will turn out to be places I got jabbed by bramble or blackthorn while pretending to be a kind of human pencil better defining a too-sketchy line.

* * * * * *

Many Musics by Raymond Soulard, Jr. [Excerpt]

Been many & many a calendar page’s turn,
been many & many, since we last walked together,
been many & many, since we last sat at table together,
been many & many, to bring us back together, tonight,
beneath that Wobble Moon, high.

* * * * * *

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

I reach towards his mind, and effortlessly pull him into the Mushroom language. Suddenly, the colors in the air become more vivid, shifting just slightly into unreality. His vision becomes seemingly crystal clear, but the world stretches out of proportion. His head detaches from his body and his hands feel miles away from his arms. The methamphetamine shooting through his system sends his brain into overdrive—his thoughts run on never-ending loops. He looks on with horror as time seems to slip away. Feeling guilty to have hurt him, I switch him into the language of alcohol. At once, all of his fear melts into a depressed, burning haze. His heart rate slows down, his head starts spinning, and his vision goes blurry.

* * * * * *

Poetry by Tamara Miles [Excerpt]

Sassafras, to get to the root of it all.
Mint, to sweeten the breath of the gods before they kiss us, deeply,
and do not apologize for it, because they know the rules of poetry
as laid down by Burns.

* * * * * *

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

Well then MeZmer the White Bunny hopped & danced among the Treasures, & her shadow was now up in the stars too! And Jumping Jacoby himself jumped into the fun, & then a lot of those Talented Bears, & it seemed like the Treasures were sorta making it so more & more of us could do this. The hmmming was even deeper than I had heard it be4ore, like there was drums inside it?

* * * * * *

Night Bus to Quito (Travel Journal) [Excerpt]
by Nathan D. Horowitz

I dreamt about Verge twice after he died. The first time, he told me that for a week after he died, he’d eaten cabbages and the tops of waves on the river where he drowned. The second time, I visited him in the Land of the Dead where he was writing plays at a community theater. He introduced me to some of his friends, who were young, gifted, and dead. Dead thespians, I learned, have a tool we don’t have in the Land of the Living: a smooth clay they can put on their faces to transform their features any way they want. I asked but wasn’t allowed to bring a jar back with me.

* * * * * *

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

Sherlock Holmes had, in a very remarkable degree, the power of detaching his mind at will. For two hours the strange business in which we had been involved appeared to be forgotten, and he was entirely absorbed in the pictures of the modern Belgian masters. He would talk of nothing but art, of which he had the crudest ideas, from our leaving the gallery until we found ourselves at the Northumberland Hotel.

* * * * * *

Poetry by Jimmy Heffernan [Excerpt]

So as we get older
We don’t gain new information
So mucsh as our perspective widens
And we see the truth in new lights
As I get older
All this makes more and more sense
As life unfolds
The focus sharpens

* * * * * *

Mad Jack (Prose) [Excerpt]
by Charlie Beyer

For the rest of the night, we watched as Bob turned one card into another, disappeared cards, pulled any card we could call from the deck, and astounded us by dealing himself a hand of aces. Things that would have him filled with lead at a Wild West saloon. And I knew just the place.

* * * * * *

Poetry by Colin James [Excerpt]

Hadrian would have stood
right about here, where
the grass is more
of a bottle green.

* * * * * *

Labyrinthine [Excerpt]
by Raymond Soulard, Jr.

The miracle of pressing black-inked pen to blue-striped white paper, words come & thus my Art continues. Amazes me, ever, dulls me, never, wonders me what next always, door ever wide open, vista a vastless view—

* * * * * *

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

Peace,
Raymond

Scriptor Press New England
scriptorpress.com
editor@scriptorpress.com