T HE C ENACLE / A PRIL - The ElectroLounge

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reflected where I was going. The Cenacle was growing because I was growing, &
because I chose to take it with me, & because I was beginning to glean what
purpose it was for: advocate for artistic & social & individual freedom, a vehicle for
disseminating reports of various kinds from what Huxley called the “Antipodes” of
consciousness.
Cenacle 18 also featured my poem “Ruby Virgin Subversives” which I felt
was the best poem I’d ever written & in subtle ways anticipates the explorations I
was bound for in 1997.
new universe of segueing flesh
governed from strong want, busted out
each day disfigures me more happily
sing to me, a mirthful canker, sing
The Ruby Virgin is mine henceforth
twisting into knots my weaknesses and dreams
allowing my red madness when it comes
applying wet skin to my rotten seams.
Others around me were changing too. Ric Amante, native of Massachusetts
but sometime resident of many American cities, had decided to move to Seattle
where he’d lived before, & take up again with a longtime love. He departed on
June 14, 1997. Between then & his eventual return on October 7, 1999, we
would see each other only twice, in 1998, once in Seattle, once in Boston. In that
time, however, we did a great amount of collaborating.
When the fall came I was still working on Cenacle 19
June 1997, but determined to catch up the project by the
end of the year. This plan succeeded; Cenacle 19 was
finished in September; Cenacle 20-21 Summer 1997 was
finished in October; Cenacle 22 October 1997 was finished
in November; & Cenacle 23 December 1997 was finished in
December 1997 & made its triumphant debut at the
12/27/97 Jellicle Guild meeting.
Cenacle 19 captures the fading traces of a magazine
that will change more in the next few months than it had in
its nearly 2 1/2 year existence. Jim Burke’s letter continues
his ongoing discussion of the dangers of technology (though it also has some sage
wisdom for my return to graduate school); Ric Amante’s poems are culled from
those in 53 Poems that had never been in The Cenacle.
Where the issue does look forward it does so tentatively or abstrusely, the
first in my comments in “From Soulard’s Notebooks”:
The Cenacle / 48 / April 2003