VI. Ideas
By Anne Carson
Eventually Geryon learned to write.
____
His mother's friend Maria gave him a beautiful notebook from Japan
with a fluorescent cover.
On the cover Geryon wrote Autobiography. Inside he set down the facts.
Total Facts Known About Geryon.
Geryon was a monster everything about him was red. Geryon lived
on an island in the Atlantic called the Red Place. Geryon's mother
was a river that runs to the sea the Red Joy River Geryon's father
was gold. Some say Geryon had six hands six feet some say wings.
Geryon was red so were his strange red cattle. Herakles came one
day killed Geryon got the cattle.
He followed Facts with Questions and Answers.
ǫᴜᴇsᴛɪᴏɴs Why did Herakles kill Geryon?
1. Just violent.
2. Had to it was one of His Labors (10th).
3. Got the idea that Geryon was Death otherwise he could live forever.
ғɪɴᴀʟʟʏ
Geryon had a little red dog Herakles killed that too.
Where does he get his ideas, said the teacher. It was Parent-Teacher Day at school.
They were sitting side by side in tiny desks.
Geryon watched his mother pick a fragment of tobacco off her tongue before she said
Does he ever write anything with a happy ending?
Geryon paused.
Then he reached up and carefully disengaged the composition paper
from the teacher's hand.
Proceeding to the back of the classroom he sat at his usual desk and took out a pencil.
New Ending.
All over the world the beautiful red breezes went on blowing hand
in hand.
Copyright Credit: "VI. Ideas” from AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF RED: A NOVEL IN VERSE by Anne Carson, copyright © 1998 by Anne Carson. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.
Source: Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse (Penguin Random House LLC, 1998)