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Raymond Soulard, Jr. Labyrinthine From Soulard’s Notebooks Assistant Editor: Kassandra Soulard Feedback................................................................................................................................1 From the Electrolounge Forums.......................................................................................6 Poetry by Gregory Kelly.......................................................................................................19 Sphinx Wolf Cactus Tree of Life [Travel Journal] by Nathan D. Horowitz.............................................................................................21 The House of Lovers & Witches [Photo Gallery] by AbandonView.....................................................................................................26 Enlightenment [Fiction] by Ace Boggess...........................................................................................................28 Poetry by Martina Newberry................................................................................................35 Notes from New England [Commentary] by Raymond Soulard, Jr. ......................................................................................37 Poetry by Tamara Miles........................................................................................................45 Rivers of the Mind [A Novel] by Timothy Vilgiate...................................................................................................49 Poetry by Tom Sheehan........................................................................................................71 Secret Joy Amongst These Times: The History of Scriptor Press by Raymond Soulard, Jr. ......................................................................................73 Prose-Poetry by Sam Knot............................................................................................................91 Taoism, Aboriginal Dreamtime, & Other Non-Western Views of Reality by Jimmy Heffernan..................................................................................................95 “You’d have to ask a Taoist”: Author Jimmy Heffernan Interviewed by Raymond Soulard, Jr.............................100 Many Musics [Poetry] by Raymond Soulard, Jr. ....................................................................................103 Memoir of a Boyhood in Cameroon and Nigeria by John Echem [with photos by Ekponoimo Iphyok].............................................108 Poetry by Judih Haggai.......................................................................................................111 Bags End Book #17 - The Myth of the 4 Famous Travelers! Part 1 [Fiction] by Algernon Beagle..................................................................................................114 Winter Gallery................................................................................................................133 Christmas Letter by Charlie Beyer.......................................................................................................136 Poetry by Colin James.........................................................................................................139 The Dead [Classic Fiction] by James Joyce........................................................................................................143 Labyrinthine [A New Fixtion] by Raymond Soulard, Jr. ...................................................................................153 Notes on Contributors...................................................................................................162 Front and back cover graphic artwork by Raymond Soulard, Jr. & Kassandra Soulard. Original Cenacle logo by Barbara Brannon. Interior graphic artwork by Raymond Soulard, Jr. & Kassandra Soulard, unless otherwise noted. Accompanying disk to print version contains: • Cenacles #47-114 • Burning Man Books #1-72 • Scriptor Press Sampler #1-18 • RaiBooks #1-8 • RS Mixes from “Within’s Within: Scenes from the Psychedelic Revolution”; & • Jellicle Literary Guild Highlights Series Disk contents downloadable at: http://www.scriptorpress.com/cenacle/supplementary_disk.zip. The Cenacle is published quarterly (with occasional special issues) by Scriptor Press New England, 2442 NW Market Street, #363, Seattle, Washington, 98107. It is kin organ to ElectroLounge website (http://www.scriptorpress. com), RaiBooks, Burning Man Books, Scriptor Press Sampler, The Jellicle Literary Guild, & “Within’s Within: Scenes from the Psychedelic Revolution w/Soulard,” broadcast online worldwide weekends on SpiritPlants Radio (http://www.spiritplantsradio.com). All rights of works published herein belong exclusively to the creator of the work. Email comments to: [email protected]. Thank you to everyone who helped someone in some way to make it through to 2021. Peace & love to you all in this Season of Lights! 2020 1 Feedback on Cenacle 113 | October 2020 From Judih Haggai: And each and every atom has a fundamental role to play in the Here we are in Israel ready for Lockdown #3, so whole and undivided movement. how delightful to open up Cenacle 113 and find But they are not building blocks such a rich community of generous writers! The whose basic existence explains all feedback on Cenacle 112, what struck us, what phenomena. moved us, and the open hearted-offering of responses was like the best kind of writers’ group The sum of the parts is far greater than the parts meeting. Each of us taking the time to ponder themselves would indicate. Thank you, Jimmy, for and present. taking me into a zoom-out allowing perspective on this temporary state we’re all living through. The From the ElectroLounge Forums: Bubble Wrap game instigated by Sam was also an adventure * * * * * * in togetherness. Like an old-time parlor game of pass-the-magic-object that transforms as it moves From Nathan D. Horowitz: around the circle . Timothy Vilgiate’s speculative fiction Rivers of After a night of uncertainty (rocket attacks again the Mind takes wing from the idea “what if a guy headed our way, but we’re quiet this morning), took too much acid next to a government research I delight in Benjamin Gray’s poetry. Especially center and developed the ability to read minds?” “Lullaby” landing smack center into my heart: The result is a narrative that’s both trippy and grounded in the texture of consensus reality. The Can you feel the seahorses waltz narrator tries to keep sane as he moves around while the crickets play on shore? Texas like a drifter, doling out healing crystals, peering into strangers’ thoughts and interacting The rhythm of the piece, the images lull me into a with their souls. They keep thinking he’s a junkie, feeling of calm. Success, Benjamin! a meth-head or heroin addict when, in fact, he’s something much weirder. The story is addictive. Raymond Soulard Jr.’s Notes from New England Catch the radio show too (https://tinyurl.com/ (pandemic edition) is especially relevant as it ybo63dhe). notes with writerly precision the world’s mishaps, the angst of job-hunting, the optimism of next John Echem’s Memoir of a Boyhood in Cameroon year at Burning Man. The journal is a steadying and Nigeria is both beautiful and poignant. Many force, kind of a metronome keeping time through non-African Cenacle reader might not know the this bizarre phase of life. reason for the ritual of cutting into the face of the corpse of the little girl in his narrative. There’s Jimmy Heffernan’s essay “Wholeness” links me a belief that a child that dies young might be an back to when Terence McKenna’s works offered ogbanje or abiku, a spirit scamming the family. me a keyhole view of what I’d understood while If that same spirit were reborn, the scars would tripping: identify it, so the ritual is to ensure that the child doesn’t die again next time. The fact that We usually think of atoms as the the narrator’s sister has died dawns slowly on the building blocks of the universe, but reader, yet faster than it dawns on the narrator. in reality atoms are just projections A rich and sad piece about family, love, and loss. from the sub-quantum ground, as are space, time, and light. Atoms To what god would I need to sacrifice to be able don’t determine everything; to write poetry like Martina Newberry of the everything determines the atoms. silver pen? Her ability to sculpt a scene and make ScriptorPress.com The Cenacle | 114 | December 2020 2 me feel it feels supernatural. The god might be From Timothy Vilgiate: pain; like Yeats, was she, in Auden’s words, “hurt . into poetry”? A house that blooms when an I am currently a graduate student in history, oppressive father leaves, a clandestine love affair, and I am interested in studying the politics of an unkind remark in Hungarian by a grandfather Amazonian hallucinogens in Brazil, so I found she has just met: the beauty of these poems leaves reading Nathan D. Horowitz’s “Alone in Cabaña a mark. Supernatura” travel journal, and his reflections on the rainbow serpent, really interesting. The * * * * * * piece makes great use of imagery, and raises very thought-provoking questions about indigenous From Martina Newberry: ontologies, which leaves me wanting to learn more. One of my favorite parts is three lines of a The Bubble Wrap collab-experiment was so poem embedded later in the text: terrific! I felt like I was visiting in each writer’s home, hearing a little story or two over coffees. He drinks the reflection of his face Sam’s post about “Celoodex” was charming and in black coffee fun
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