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Quotes tagged “The Slowdown”

“The number of rice grains left in your supper bowl
foretells how many pockmarks will appear on your lover’s face

Sleeping on your back will flatten your head’s shape
but sleep on your stomach and you’ll induce nightmares

Eating the fat inside the crab sharpens the mind
so too the roe extracted from the steamed fish

Never let your feet touch cold water from the bathtub or
the sea on days when you’re menstruating

Pinch the nose before age six when the cartilage is pliable
so the nasal bridge will grow narrow and high

Drift asleep with your hair wet
and you’ll suffer from decades of migraines

You’ll wreck your eyesight poring over pages in low light
but looking at all things green from a distance can coax it back”
— Jenny Xie, Old Wives’ Tales on Which I Was Fed
Tagged: Poetry, The Slowdown, Eyesight, Low Light, menstruation, Migraines
“He is not as young as he used to be. With a groan
he chooses a sizable canvas. He broods on it.
He wastes his time haggling about his commission
with a mean Carmelite monk from the Abruzzi,
prior, or canon, or whatnot. It is winter now.
His finger joints start cracking like the brushwood
in the fireplace. With a groan he will ground
the canvas, let it dry, ground it once more,
will scrawl his figures, impatiently, ghostlike,
on small cartoons, and set them off with white lead.
He temporizes and idles away a few weeks,
rubbing down his colors. But at long last—
Ash Wednesday has gone by, and Candlemas—
early one morning he dips his brush in burnt umber
and starts painting. This will be a gloomy picture.
How do you go about painting Doom? The conflagrations,
the vanishing islands, the lightning, the walls
and towers and pinnacles crumbling ever so slowly:
nice points of technique, problems of composition.
Destroying the world is a difficult exercise.
Hardest to paint are the sounds—for example
the temple veil being rent asunder, the beasts
roaring, and the thunderclaps. Everything, you see,
is to be rent asunder and torn to pieces,
except the canvas. And there can be no doubt
about the appointed time: by All Souls’ Day
the frantic sea in the background must be coated
over and over again with a thousand layers
of transparency, with foamy green lights,
pierced by mastheads, by ships reeling, plunging down,
by wrecks, while outside, in mid-July,
not a dog will stir on the dust-covered square.
The women have left, the servants, the disciples.
In the forlorn town only the Master remains.
He looks tired. Who would have thought that he, of all people,
would look dead tired? Ochre—everything seems ochre now,
shadowless, standing still, transfixed in a kind
of evil eternity, except the picture. It grows
and darkens slowly, absorbing shadows,
steel-blue; livid, dull violet, caput mortuum,
absorbing demons and horsemen and massacres,
until Doom is happily consummated and the artist,
for a brief moment, is, like a child, unmindfully merry,
as if his life has been spared, and in his relief
on this very night he asks his friends to a feast
and treats them to truffles, to grouse and old wine,
with the season’s first rainstorm pounding away at the shutters.”
— Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Apocalypse, Umbrian Master, about 1490
Tagged: Poetry, The Slowdown, young, Carmelite, Abruzzi, Rainstorm, Doom, Truffles, July, All Souls' Day, Thunderclaps
“You, woman, bearing your losses,
the dog’s leash taut in your hand,
how can you so blind & quickly
pass us on your morning walks?
Haven’t you yet learned
there are happenings on planes
you do not see?
The dog knows we are here & have
crucial news. When he stops
& presses his muzzle to the air,
can’t you see him sniffing at our feet?”
— Crystal Williams, What the Memories Said
Tagged: Poetry, The Slowdown, Woman, Dog Leash
“We ironed fall leaves
between wax-paper sheets.
We melted crayons into candles
and froze Kool-Aid into popsicles.
We poked cloves into oranges. We grew roots
on sweet potatoes tooth-picked in water.
We taped our broken glasses together
and shut up. We made shoe-box
dioramas with Play-Doh and modeling clay.
We cut snowflakes from folded paper
and hung them with kite string.
We made newspaper kites
and imagined they could fly.

We shaped tin foil into fake coins
for our church envelopes.
We covered love bites with Kool-Aid.
We filled liquor bottles with holy water.
We hid our stash in beanbag chairs.
We drove to Ohio for drugs
and rolled back our father’s odometer.
We mounted our girlfriends
on basement pool tables, clacking balls together
for ears upstairs.
We drew lies with chalk
and the truth with tar.
We lit our hair on fire
to cover the smell.
    ”
— Jim Daniels, Hair on Fire
Tagged: Poetry, The Slowdown, Ohio, Odometer, Kook-Aid, Pool Tables, Play-Doh, Crayons
“'If this were the beginning of a poem, he would have called the thing he felt inside him the silence of snow.' -Orhan Pamuk

Before the hanging cross, the girls
take turns standing at attention before
us with eyes closed or hands clasped,

headbands bright green or bangles
yellow, glints that fill the silence like
falling snow. They recite poems they

have carried in their mouths for days,
and my desire to go back, to be one
among these slender, long-haired girls

is a thistle, sharp and twisting at my
side. The words psalm, blessing, lord
rise in me like bees heavy with pollen,

and the teenager I once was unzips
herself from me, shows up, a crocus
bristling through snow. She’s back

in the old chapel where the priest
again lifts into the air the Bible,
declaims about the kingdom of God,

gifts promised only the righteous—
the girl I was, heavy and slow in her
thick glasses, knew she would never

enter heaven, never be these pretty girls
singing, arms pale and slim as the white
birch whose branches, dappled with gold,

shade the stained glass window. In Pamuk’s
novel, Snow, the headscarf girls in Eastern Turkey
hang themselves rather than go uncovered,

and still I want that certainty of conviction,
even as the self beside me pulls on her hair,
sucks long strands of it deep into her mouth—

so I gather her in my arms, shake her, tell
her to listen, that the sky will always happen,
these branches. Sometimes, it causes me

to tremble, tremble, she sings beside these
girls who will grow into or away from their
bodies, and I know I must push the heavy

amber of her back inside me. Help me, Lord.
There are so many bodies inside this one.”
— Tarfia Faizullah, Poetry Recitation at St. Catherine’s School for Girls
Tagged: Poetry, The Slowdown, prayer, Turkey, Orhan Pamuk, Snow, Eastern Turkey
“A classmate and I chose pendulums,
what happens when a pendulum

hangs from a pendulum?
How does gravity work then?

We were studying invisible forces
and left the classroom, heading into

the world with just our two bodies,
which were to be both string and bob.

In the woods behind school, he climbed into a tree
and lowered himself down,

holding a branch.
I reached up to his thin ankles

and lifted my bare feet off the ground.
Someone must have been there to try to make us swing,

record the harmonic oscillations,
and take the polaroids,

still stapled to this yellowed lab report.
It’s haunting to discover it now, to see in the photos

how we hung there smiling, white,
safe and dumb.

How little history we knew.
If only all feet could come back

to stand on the ground,
not get buried under it,

left to hang above, left outside
in the told and untold,

in the toll of hot municipal suns.
We didn’t understand much of anything

but completed the assignment,
typed up the results, passed physics,

went to college and typed and typed
and never took another science class,

we were humanities majors.
Sometimes when I’m not typing now

I run lines with an actor friend
and can’t get them out of my head.

Another heavenly day,
says Winnie as the curtain rises.

She’s buried to her waist in earth
and for a while you think it can’t get any worse.

The humanities.
What are they, really?

Don’t let me sleep on.”
— Catherine Barnett, The Humanities
Tagged: Poetry, The Slowdown, Humanities, actor
“everyone wants to know
what I saw on the long walk
away from you

I couldn’t eat
and didn’t sleep
for an entire week

I can hardly picture any of it now
save the fox I thought
was in the grass but wasn’t

I remember him quiet
as a telescope
tiny as a Plutonian moon

everything else
was wilding around us
the sky and the wind

the riptides and
the rogue comet
blasting toward earth

do you remember this
I introduced myself
by one of the names

I kept back then
the fox was so still
I could have called him anything”
— Kaveh Akbar, Portrait of the Alcoholic with Withdrawal
Tagged: Poetry, The Slowdown, Riptides, Quiet, Comet, Fox
“Today is a trumpet to set the hounds baying.
The past is a fox the hunters are flaying.
Nothing unspoken goes without saying.
Love’s a casino where lovers risk playing.
The future’s a marker our hearts are prepaying.

The future’s a promise there’s no guaranteeing.
Today is a fire the field mice are fleeing.
Love is a marriage of feeling and being.
The past is a mirror for wishful sightseeing.
Nothing goes missing without absenteeing.

Nothing gets cloven except by dividing.
The future is chosen by atoms colliding.
The past’s an elision forever eliding.
Today is a fog bank in which I am hiding.
Love is a burn forever debriding.

Love’s an ascent forever plateauing.
Nothing is granted except by bestowing.
Today is an anthem the cuckoos are crowing.
The future’s a convolute river onflowing.
The past is a lawn the neighbor is mowing.

The past is an answer not worth pursuing,
Nothing gets done except by the doing.
The future’s a climax forever ensuing.
Love is only won by wooing.
Today is a truce between reaping and rueing.”
— Campbell McGrath, Reverse Suicide
Tagged: Poetry, The Slowdown, truce, Reaping, Past, Love, Future, present
“The guy Dad sold your car to
comes back to get his money,

leaves the car. With filthy rags
we rub it down until it doesn’t shine

and wipe your blood into
the seams of the seat.

Each snowflake stirs before
lifting into the sky as I

learn you won’t be dead.
The unsuffering ends

when the mess of your head
pulls together around

a bullet in your mouth.
You spit it into Dad’s gun

before arriving in the driveway
while the evening brightens

and we pour bag after bag
of leaves on the lawn,

waiting for them to leap”
— Matt Rasmussen, Reverse Suicide
Tagged: Poetry, The Slowdown, snowflake, Suffering, Bullet
“When the bass drops on Bill Withers’
Better Off Dead, it’s like 7 a.m.
and I confess I’m looking
over my shoulder once or twice
just to make sure no one in Brooklyn
is peeking into my third-floor window
to see me in pajamas I haven’t washed
for three weeks before I slide
from sink to stove in one long groove
left foot first then back to the window side
with my chin up and both fists clenched
like two small sacks of stolen nickels
and I can almost hear the silver
hit the floor by the dozens
when I let loose and sway a little back
and just like that I’m a lizard grown
two new good legs on a breeze
-bent limb. I’m a grown-ass man
with a three-day wish and two days to live.
And just like that everyone
knows my heart’s broke and no one is home.
Just like that, I’m water.
Just like that, I’m the boat.
Just like that, I’m both things in the whole world
rocking. Sometimes sadness is just
what comes between the dancing. And bam!,
my mother’s dead and, bam!, my brother’s
children are laughing. Just like—ok, it’s true
I can’t pop up from my knees so quick these days
and no one ever said I could sing but
tell me my body ain’t good enough
for this. I’ll count the aches another time,
one in each ankle, the sharp spike in my back,
this mud-muscle throbbing in my going bones,
I’m missing the six biggest screws
to hold this blessed mess together. I’m wind—
rattled. The wood’s splitting. The hinges are
falling off. When the first bridge ends,
just like that, I’m a flung open door.”
— Patrick Rosal, Brokeheart: Just Like That
Tagged: Poetry, The Slowdown, Bill Withers, Better off Dead, Sadness, Brooklyn
“My mother was in the hospital & everyone wanted to be my friend.
But I was busy making a list: good dog, bad citizen, short
skeleton, tall mocha. Typical Tuesday.
My mother was in the hospital & no one wanted to be her friend.
Everyone wanted to be soft cooing sympathies. Very reasonable
pigeons. No one had the time & our solution to it
was to buy shinier watches. We were enamored with
what our wrists could declare. My mother was in the hospital
& I didn’t want to be her friend. Typical son. Tall latte, short tale,
bad plot, great wifi in the atypical café. My mother was in the hospital
& she didn’t want to be her friend. She wanted to be the family
grocery list. Low-fat yogurt, firm tofu. She didn’t trust my father
to be it. You always forget something, she said, even when
I do the list for you. Even then.”
— Chen Chen, In the Hospital
Tagged: Poetry, The Slowdown, Mocha, Tuesday, Sympathies, latte, Wifi, yogurt, Tofu
“She couldn’t stop—she did it
almost every afternoon while
they napped or later sat
upstairs with homework.
She listened to the scrape
of desk chairs on the ceiling
while she measured and blended,
hummed from oven
to sink, redolence rising
in a sweet promise she thought
was required, didn’t know
how to live without,
all her life afraid
to be left empty-handed.”
— Lisa C. Krueger, Donating the Cake Dome
Tagged: Poetry, The Slowdown, Napping, Empty-Handed
“A man walks into a coffee shop.
But it’s not a joke.
I bought coffee there
last summer.
Small, with milk.
It’s never a joke
to walk in or out of a shop
unharmed. It’s easy
to forget
you aren’t a person
being shot at.
I’m not.
I wasn’t, though
I was there,
last summer.
Not-shot-at
and I never knew it.
Did not once
think it.
Thinking it now
the moment thins,
it sheers,
and I move back to
other coffee shops
where I never fell, or bled,
and then
I sit for a while
with my regular cup
and feel things collapse
or go on, I can’t tell.”
— Lia Purpura, Proximities
Tagged: Poetry, The Slowdown, Coffee Shop, milk, joke, Summer
“Koko Taylor walked up on John Henry
took the hammer right out his hand
and bent it and twisted it into a fine necklace
and took him to a real nice dinner.
Koko Taylor had twelve thousand wigs.
One she never wore. Just kept at home.
Was enchanted, spun from gold and full of rubies,
and sang to her at night in the voice of her mother.
Koko Taylor wrote songs with a blue ink pen.
Koko Taylor wrote rivers with a blue ink pen.
Koko Taylor wrote the Illinois Central Rail line with a blue pen.
Just got right on her knees and scratched it into the ground.
Koko Taylor was the ghostwriter of seventeen Beatles songs.
Koko Taylor was the inventor of the icebox.
Koko Taylor could play chess with checkers.
Koko Taylor could bake a pound cake in the palm of her hand by winking.
Koko Taylor flew from Memphis to Chicago on a jukebox.
The jukebox could grant three wishes.
Koko Taylor wished for lipstick the color she saw in a dream.
She wished to be born again, under a good sign.
She wished for a better jukebox.”
— Eve L. Ewing, True Stories about Koko Taylor
Tagged: Poetry, The Slowdown, Koko Taylor, John Henry, memphis, Chicago, jukebox, The Blues, The Beatles
“abuelita’s hands were a time card she clocked
in and out, morning and night. they were
a pile of dirty sheets at the foot of a bed,
gnarled broomsticks, dustpans, and sooty vacuums,
her hands were soiled rags in yellow gloves,
they were two pillows beaten of mites
and dead skin, her hands were paper towels
and windex on greasy mirrors.
they were many rooms each day.
her hands were a slice of wonder bread
dipped in dark coffee with sugar,
they were cinnamon sticks oozing in farina,
they were ketchup squeezed over a plate
of scrambled eggs and white rice
they were what fed and cleansed
her hands were my hands
rushing to school before work.”
— Aja Monet, 564 park avenue
Tagged: Poetry, The Slowdown, Abuelita, Cinnamon Sticks, Farina, Scrambled Eggs, Coffee

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This page was created by our editorial team. Each page is manually curated, researched, collected, and issued by our staff writers. Quotes contained on this page have been double checked for their citations, their accuracy and the impact it will have on our readers.

Kelly Peacock is an accomplished poet and social media expert based in Brooklyn, New York. Kelly has a Bachelor's degree in creative writing from Farieligh Dickinson University and has contributed to many literary and cultural publications. Kelly assists on a wide variety of quote inputting and social media functions for Quote Catalog. Visit her personal website here.

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