The Kingdom of Ordinary Time Quotes

“If I stopped dyeing my hair everyone would know that my golden hair is actually gray, and my long American youth would be over—and then what?”
― Marie Howe, The Kingdom of Ordinary Time: Poems

“I called her name into the fold between night and day.”
― Marie Howe, The Kingdom of Ordinary Time: Poems

“Government Standing next to my old friend I sense that his soldiers have retreated. And mine? They’re resting their guns on their shoulders talking quietly. I’m hungry, one says. Cheeseburger, says another, and they all decide to go and find some dinner. But the next day, negotiating the too narrow aisles of The Health and Harmony Food Store—when I say, Excuse me, to the woman and her cart of organic chicken and green grapes she pulls the cart not quite far back enough for me to pass, and a small mob in me begins picking up the fruit to throw. So many kingdoms, and in each kingdom, so many people: the disinherited son, the corrupt counselor, the courtesan, the fool. And so many gods—arguing among themselves, over toast, through the lunch salad and on into the long hours of the mild spring afternoon—I’m the god. No, I’m the god. No, I’m the god. I can hardly hear myself over their muttering. How can I discipline my army? They’re exhausted and want more money. How can I disarm when my enemy seems so intent?”
― Marie Howe, The Kingdom of Ordinary Time: Poems

“Marriage My husband likes to watch the cooking shows, the building shows, the Discovery Channel, and the surgery channel. Last night he told us about a man who came into the emergency room with a bayonet stuck entirely through his skull and brain. Did they get it out? We all asked. They did. And the man was ok because the blade went exactly between the two halves without severing them. And who had shoved this bayonet into the man’s head? His wife. A strong woman, someone said. And everyone else agreed.”
― Marie Howe, The Kingdom of Ordinary Time: Poems

“The soul has a story that has a shape that almost no one
sees. No, no one ever does.”
― Marie Howe, The Kingdom of Ordinary Time: Poems

“This is the life you have written, the novel tells us. What happens next?”
― Marie Howe, The Kingdom of Ordinary Time: Poems

“Hurry up honey, I say, hurry hurry,
as she runs along two or three steps behind me
her blue jacket unzipped and her socks rolled down.

Where do I want her to hurry to? To her grave?
To mine? Where one day she might stand all grown?”
― Marie Howe, The Kingdom of Ordinary Time: Poems

“I'm an American, I have never heard a nightingale sing,
although all the poems say the song of that bird is sublime.”
― Marie Howe, The Kingdom of Ordinary Time: Poems

“I don't want to offend anybody but I never did like
fucking all that much. Like I always say

the saw enjoys the wood more than the wood enjoys
the saw--know what I mean?”
― Marie Howe, The Kingdom of Ordinary Time: Poems