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Review: The Book of Grace, Steppenwolf Theatre Chicago https://www.talkinbroadway.com/page/regional/chicago/ch802.html

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Write the Year 2025: Week 14—The Lesson

I wanted to write something about liking to like things and seeing something that I didn’t like (and then something I did), but as ever, I left this too late to really think through anything that isn’t strictly rule driven, so something else about the poor, castoff doll in the woods. It’s a Bragi. Title: The LessonWC: 85 The dog, of course, the firstTo see my imprint hand in mudThe honest…

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Write the Year 2025—Week 13: Surfacing

I should try not writing when I’m exhausted some time. This is an individualtean. Forest-prompted, as usual. Title: SurfacingWC: 119 When we’re both not drowning, I might come backWould you greet me with a parade?Blade drawn, perhaps in rageLook at me: unafraidBlaze hot as you like. Burn hard, in fact.What fear’s left at this age? Cage what’s leftSee if it lastsDistance equals rate times…

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Write the Year 2025—Week 12: Postdiluvian

Another cruddy, “get something done.” It really started with the rising bones. I write about bones too much. This is a “First and Last.”Title: PostdiluvianWC: 90 Blood: blue, struggling back to your heartHope: faded like sidewalk chalk artGhosts: bored, waiting to play their partCinderblock eyes, all in a rowSilver stars, fallen, covered in snow Roman candles with broken spinesBend their heads…

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Write the Year 2025—Week 11: Martha et al.

This picks up a prompt (just the name Martha, which was one of the daily prompts from Writers Write this week) and goes in a weird direction, to say the least. For whatever reason, I immediately thought of “Martha My Dear” and then hit on the Quaintrell form, which requires three octets. My brain then leapt to “Dear Prudence,” and I had the idea of each octet being a woman complaining about being…

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Review: Hamlet, Teatro La Plaza (Lima, Peru), Chicago Shakespeare in partnership with Chicago Latino Theater Alliance: https://www.talkinbroadway.com/page/regional/chicago/ch799.html

This show was terrific.

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Write the Year 2025—Week 10: Stabile

This may be a new pinnacle of dumbness. It’s inspired by an exceptionally ugly lawn ornament in my neighborhood. It’s a Piaku (because, you know, Pi day this week). Title: StabileWC: 75 A rustyheartlike Picassobuilthis own love storyfrom a DIY kit missing screws.It listswest, sunk into the lawn,envying the pulseinside eachribcage passing by.Its erstwhile electricitylights the sky in white…

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Write the Year 2025—Week 9: Sighting

This started with seeing a deer in the woods at the exact minute I needed to convince the Danger Beagle it was time to head home. It’s a Pathya Vat. Title: SightingWC: 49 You on the hill.One planet—bright—announces the night,the slanting weightof day yielding.Two souls migrate.A glass bird’s fateswiftly descends.The wooden edgestill comprehendsthe looming end.The sound of soundtaps a…

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Write the Year 2025—Week 8: La Niña

There’s a cast-off baby doll in the forest preserve. She has just re-emerged from the snow. I want to write a story about her (in fact, I kind of started to last week, before I short-circuited entirely), but that requires planning. So, a poem. An Ovillejo. Title: La NiñaWC: 59 Damp earth bears the stamp of my handStiff fingers fannedSnowmelt and sawdust and swollen limbsDay dawns, then…

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Write the Year 2025—Week 7: A ways from now

Late. I just could not get my act together last night; more images from walks, but this time stirring childhood memories. Back when LiveJournal was a thing, I wrote a simple post about how strange a house like mine (the one I occupy now) must seem to the neighborhood kids in summer. Except then I realized that neighborhood kids almost certainly don’t know the houses in the same way I did back…

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Write the Year 2025—Week 6: Second-Hand Windows

Trying to keep on keeping on, but it’s hard. Just a Diminishing Hexaverse here. Title: Second-Hand WindowsWC: 59 Rusty Picasso heartsBrown paper-bag magicOne tombstone on the moveAll that was wears awayImpressionistic birdsI lose myself in loss Tarnish settles inThough silver persistsQuestion-mark handlesMust have wondered onceHow the sun forgot Winter revealsContorted limbsGaze fixed…

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Write the Year 2025—Week 5: Quietus

This is sort of to the poetry prompt from Poets & Writers for this week. It’s been an exciting few days in the Danger Beagle woods. I know everyone (except me) hates this time of year, but I really love the visuals—and all the sensations really—right now. It’s a Cinq Trois DecaLa Rhyme Title: QuietusWC: 110 When summer comes, who but I will miss the settle of smoke blueThe peevish, pebbled…

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Write the Year 2025—Week 4: The Pond

A chain of abolition. Feeling pretty empty of inspiration, but this does depart from something (oh, two somethings, now that I am looking) in my “stimulus list.” Title: The PondWC: 68 The frozen ghostspress their concrete handsto the pen-nib windows,Hungry for the light within.Roadside psalmsWho listens close?Who misunderstands?Who bothers with the woeswhen the veil between grows thin?What…

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Write the Songs 2025: Song #2—The Wave

The assignment was to use standard tuning and experiment with moving a chord shape up and down the neck. I don’t know why I’m consorting with E major, which is legitimately one of my least favorite chords. But for some reason, the E to D (but hitting the major 7 of the D while playing a regular D) was hitting my ear right for something that was going to end up key-less. And then moving the E…

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Write the Year 2025—Week 3: To Light

Just another “from the stimuli” poem. An Endecha Title: To LightWC: 67 Blue settles, eerie, on snowThe swift-setting sun gives chaseWe breathe, our bodies hollow,In the distant dark, hills and valleys embrace A sailboat of brittle leavesGathers the clouds of our sighsAnd cuts across hungry wavesKnife blade ripples follow, scattering goodbyes Who can hide for long behindRusty waterfalls of…

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Write the Songs 2025: Song #1—Help You Hide the Bodies

I am . . . like three years behind on uploading rough recordings and documenting songs, so I am just trying to dive in. I was thinking maybe I’ll start with this—Song #1 of 2025 and I’ll hunt up Song #1 of 2024 and Song #1 of 2023 (I think Song #1 of both 2022 and 2021 are already up? I’m sort of afraid to look.) The assignment was a song to a friend having a tough time. The only other…

https://mtzqwrites.wordpress.com/2025/01/17/write-the-songs-2024-song-1-help-you-hide-the-bodies/

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Write the Year 2025—Week 2: Passing, Strange

A poem. A Bragi, in fact. I’ve been trying to be more intention about “filling the well,” so each day, I’m adding to a note on my phone that I’ve just called “Stimuli.” It’s making me notice that I’m not noticing non-visual things, for the most part, and I’m trying to make an effort to do so. This came together out of the effort so far. Title: Passing, StrangeWC: 64 A shadow swings—slick,…