Autobiography Of Red Anne Carson Quotes

Words bounce. Words, if you let them, will do what they want to do and what they have to do.

Desire is no light thing.

Reality is a sound, you have to tune in to it not just keep yelling.

Under the seams runs the pain.

He came after Homer and before Gertrude Stein, a difficult interval for a poet.

A man moves through time. It means nothing except that, like a harpoon, once thrown he will arrive.

They were two superior eels at the bottom of the tank and they recognized each other like italics.

Sometimes a journey makes itself necessary.

How does distance look?" is a simple direct question. It extends from a spaceless within to the edge of what can be loved.

What is an adjective? Nouns name the world. Verbs activate the names. Adjectives come from somewhere else. The word adjective (epitheton in Greek) is itself an adjective meaning 'placed on top', 'added', 'appended', 'foreign'. Adjectives seem fairly innocent additions, but look again. These small imported mechanisms are in charge of attaching everything in the world to its place in particularity. They are the latches of being.

Not touching but joined in astonishment as two cuts lie parallel in the same flesh.

There is no person without a world.

When they made love Geryon liked to touch in slow succession each of the bones of Herakles' back as it arched away from him into who knows what dark dream of its own, running both hands all the way down from the base of the neck to the end of the spine which he can cause to shiver like a root in the rain.

Meanwhile music pounded / across hearts opening every valve to the desperate drama of being / a self in a song.

Depression is one of the unknown modes of being. There are no words for a world without a self, seen with impersonal clarity. All language can register is the slow return to oblivion we call health when imagination automatically recolors the landscape and habit blurs perception and language takes up its routine flourishes.

You doubt God? Well more to the point I credit God with the good sense to doubt me. What is mortality after all but divine doubt flashing over us? For an instant God suspends assent and poof! we disappear.

Then a miracle occurred in the form of a plate of sandwiches. Geryon took three and buried his mouth in a delicious block of white bread filled with tomatoes and butter and salt. He thought about how delicious it was, how he liked slippery foods, how slipperiness can be of different kinds. I am a philosopher of sandwiches, he decided. Things good on the inside.

Small, red, and upright he waited, gripping his new bookbag tight in one hand and touching a lucky penny inside his coat pocket with the other, while the first snows of winter floated down on his eyelashes and covered the branches around him and silenced all trace of the world.

...there it was one of those moments that is the opposite of blindness.

I will never know how you see red and you will never know how I see it.

A refugee population is hungry for language and aware that anything can happen.

...And tonight—Geryon? You okay? Yes fine, I'm listening. Tonight—? Why do you have your jacket over your head? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Can't hear you Geryon. The jacket shifted. Geryon peered out. I said sometimes I need a little privacy.

And now time is rushing towards them   where they stand side by side with arms touching, immortality on their faces,   night at their back.

Geryon was a monster everything about him was red

Four of the roses were on fire. They stood up straight and pure on the stalk, gripping the dark like prophets and howling colossal intimacies from the back of their fused throats. - XXVII. MITWELT

It was the hour when snow goes blue and streetlights come on and a hare may pause on the tree line as still as a word in a book.

Are there many little boys who think they are a Monster? But in my case I am right said Geryon to the Dog they were sitting on the bluffs The dog regarded him Joyfully

He was trying to fit this Herakles onto the one he knew.

She stumbled then and Geryon caught her other arm, it was like a handful of autumn. He felt huge and wrong. When is it polite to let go someone’s arm after you grab it?

The red world And corresponding red breezes Went on Geryon did not

Outside, the natural world was enjoying a moment of total strength.

…..in that blurred state between awake and asleep when too many intake valves are open in the soul. Like the terrestial crust of the earth which is proportionately 10 times thinner than an eggshell, the skin of the soul is a miracle of mutual pressures. Millions of kilograms of force pounding up from earth’s core on the inside to meet the cold air of the world and stop as we do, just in time.

He had a respect for facts maybe this was one.

And now time is rushing towards them where they stand side by side with arms touching, immortality on their faces, night at their back.

...some hours later they were down at the railroad tracks standing close together by the switch lights. The huge night moved overhead scattering drops of itself.

As in childhood we live sweeping close to the sky and now, what dawn is this.

Lava bread makes you passionate.

Yellow? said Geryon. And he was thinking Yellow! Yellow! Even in dreams he doesn’t know me at all! Yellow!

The instant of nature forming between them drained every drop from the walls of   his life leaving behind just ghosts rustling like an old map.

And for a moment the frailest leaves of life contained him in a widening happiness.

Don't want to be free want to be with you.

These days Geryon was experiencing a pain not felt since childhood. His wings were struggling. They tore against each other on his shoulders like the little mindless red animals they were.

Ascent of the rapist up the stairs seems as slow as lava. She listens to the black space where his consciousness is, moving towards her.

Like the terrestrial crust of the earth / which is proportionately ten times thinner than an eggshell, the skin of the soul / is a miracle of mutual pressures.

Although a monster Geryon could be charming in company.

A gust of night pushed its way in the door and everyone inside wavered once like stalks in a field then resumed their talk.

and there it was one of those moments that is the opposite of blindness. The world poured back and forth between their eyes once or twice.

Geryon was amazed at himself. He saw Herakles just about every day now. The instant of nature forming between them drained every drop from the walls of his life leaving behind just ghosts rustling like an old map. He had nothing to say to anyone. He felt loose and shiny. He burned in the presence of his mother I hardly know you anymore, she said leaning against the doorway of his room. It had rained suddenly at suppertime, now sunset was startling drops at the window. Stale peace of old bedtimes filled the room. Love does not make me gentle or kind, thought Geryon as he and his mother eyed each other from opposite shores of the light

This was when Geryon liked to plan his autobiography; in that blurred state, between awake and asleep. When too many intake values are open in the soul, like the terrestrial crust of the earth.

Somehow Geryon made it to adolescence. Then he met Herakles and the kingdoms of his life all shifted down a few notches. ... Geryon was going into the Bus Depot one Friday night about three a.m. to get change to call home. Herakles stepped oof the bus from New Mexico and Geryon came fast around the corner of the platform and there it was one of those moments that is the opposite of blindness. The world poured back and forth between their eyes once or twice.

Who can a monster blame for being red?

How does distance look?' is a simple direct question. It extends from a spaceless within to the edge of what can be loved. It depends on light.

Would this day never end? His eye traveled to the clock at the front of the room and he fell into the pool of his favorite question.

He / thought of women. / What is it like to be a woman / listening in the dark? Black mantle of silence / stretches between them like geothermal pressure. / Ascent of the rapist up the stairs seems as slow as / lava. She listens / to the blank space where / his consciousness is, moving towards her. Lava can / move as slow as / nine hours per inch. [...] She wonders if / he is listening too. The cruel thing is, she falls asleep / listening.

May god favour you with dreams

Geryon closed his eyes and listened to engines vibrating deep in the moon-splashed canals of his brain.

A paste of blue cloud untangled itself on the red sky over the harbour.

He felt Herakles' hand move on his thigh and Geryon's head went back like a poppy in a breeze --

Aztán megindult feléjük az idő, ahogy karjukkal egymáshoz simulva álltak, arcukon a halhatatlanság, hátukban az éjszaka.

It happens to me frequently. You disappear? Yes and then come back. Moments of death I call them.

He picked his way carefully toward the sex question. Why is it a question? He understood that people need acts of attention from one another, does it really matter which acts?

At what point does one say of a man that he has become unreal? He hugged his overcoat closer and tried to assemble in his mind Heidegger’s argument about the use of moods. We would think ourselves continuous with the world if we did not have moods. It is state-of-mind that discloses to us (Heidegger claims) that we are beings who have been thrown into something else.

Most / of those he interviewed for the science project had to admit they did not hear the cries of the roses / being burned alive in the noonday sun. Like horses, Geryon would say helpfully, / like horses in war. No, they shook their heads./ Why is grass called blades? he asked them. Isn’t it because of the clicking? / They stared at him. You should be / interviewing roses not people, said the science teacher. Geryon liked this idea. / The last page of his project / was a photograph of his mother's rosebush under the kitchen window. / Four od the roses were on fire. / They stood up straight and pure on the stalk, gripping the dark like prophets / and howling colossal intimacies / from the back of their fused throats.

It had rained suddenly at suppertime, now sunset was startling drops at the window. Stale peace of old bedtimes filled the room. Love does not make me gentle or kind, thought Geryon as he and his mother eyed each other from opposite shores of the light.

Water! Out from between two crouching masses of the world the word leapt. ———— It was raining on his face. He forgot for a moment that he was a brokenheart then he remembered. Sick lurch downward to Geryon trapped in his own bad apple. Each morning a shock to return to the cut soul.

Do you have change for a dollar? Geryon heard Geryon say. No. Herakles stared straight at Geryon. But I'll give you a quarter for free. Why would you do that? I believe in being gracious. Some hours later they were down at the railroad tracks standing close together by the switch lights. The huge night moved overhead scattering drops of itself. You're cold, said Herakles suddenly, your hands are cold. Here. He put Geryon's hands inside his shirt.

Pass down an alley then turn a corner and there it is. Volcano in a wall. Do you see that, says Ancash. Beautiful, Herakles breathes out. He is looking at the men. I mean the fire, says Ancash. Herakles grins in the dark. Ancash watches the flames. We are amazing beings, Geryon is thinking. We are neighbors of fire. And now time is rushing towards them where they stand side by side with arms touching, immortality on their faces, night at their back.

The huge night moved overhead scattering drops of itself.

But when justice is done the world drops away.

Up against another human being one's own procedures take on definition.

How does distance look?" is a simple direct question. It extends from a spaceless within to the edge of what can be loved.

How does distance look?” is a simple direct question. It extends from a spaceless within to the edge of what can be loved.

Geryon watched the top of Herakles’ head and felt his limits returning. Nothing to say. Nothing.

In Geryon’s autobiography this page has a photograph of some red rabbit giggle tied with a white ribbon. He has titled it “Jealous of My Little Sensations.

Forró volt a hang, mint egy szín belseje.

XII. WINGS Steps off a scraped March sky and sinks Up into the blind Atlantic morning One small Red dog jumping across the beach miles below Like a freed shadow

love does not make me gentle or kind

Words, if you let them, will do what they want to do and what they have to do.

How does distance look?” is a simple direct question. It extends from a spaceless within to the edge of what can be loved. It depends on light.

It is a black-and-white photograph showing a naked young man in fetal position. He has entitled it "No Tail!" The fantastic fingerwork of his wings is outspread on the bed like a black lace map of South America.

Little rackety wind went by. / Moon gone. Sky shut. Night had delved deep. Somewhere (he thought) beneath / this strip of sleeping pavement / the enormous solid globe is spinning on its way—pistons thumping, lava pouring / from shelf to shelf, / evidence and time lignifying into their traces.

Three ancient musicians hunched there— piano, guitar, accordion. None of them looked less than seventy years old, the accordion player so frail each time he swayed his shoulders around a corner of the melody Geryon feared the accordion would crush him flat. It gradually became clear that nothing could crush this man. Hardly glancing at one another the three of them played as one person, in a state of pure discovery. They tore clear and clicked and locked and unlocked, they shot their eyebrows up and down. They leaned together and wove apart, they rose and cut away and stalked one another and flew up in a cloud and sank back down on waves.

*Geryon what's wrong? Jesus I hate it when you cry. What is it?* Geryon thinks hard. l once loved you, now I don't know you at all. He does not say this. *I was thinking about time* -he gropes- *you know how apart people are in time together and apart at the same time* -stops. Herakles wipes tears from Geryon's face with one hand. *Can't you ever just fuck and not think?* Herakles gets out of bed and goes into the bathroom. Then he comes back and stands at the window a long while. By the time he returns to the bed it is getting light. *Well Geryon just another Saturday morning me laughing and you crying,* he says as he climbs in. Geryon watches him pull the blanket up to his chin. *Just like the old days.* *Just like the old days,* Geryon says too.

They recognised each other like italics.

Children make you see distances. What do you mean “distances”? Lazer paused and picked an olive from the plate. He spun it slowly on the toothpick. Well for example this morning I was sitting at my desk at home looking out on the acacia trees that grow beside the balcony beautiful trees very tall and my daughter was there she likes to stand beside me and draw pictures while I write in my journal. It was very bright this morning unexpectedly clear like a summer day and I looked up and saw a shadow of a bird go flashing across the leaves of the acacia as if on a screen projected and it seemed to me that I was standing on a hill. I have labored up to the top of this hill, here I am it has taken about half my life to get here and on the other side the hill slopes down. Behind me somewhere if I turned around I could see my daughter beginning to climb hand over hand like a little gold animal in the morning sun. That is who we are. Creatures moving on a hill. At different distances, said Geryon.

... tout entier s’arc-bouta en un cri - à la forme de cette coutume, l’humaine coutume des amours erronées

You doubt God? Well more to the point I credit God with the good sense to doubt me

Stesichoros

Something black and heavy dropped between them like a smell of velvet.

Ők voltak a tartály fenekén a legfenségesebb angolnák, és mint a dőlt betűk, felismerték egymást.

Az alámerülés az éj rohadt rubinjába a szabadság és a rossz logika versengésévé változott.

Gyermekként úgy élünk, szinte az eget súroljuk, de most miféle virradat ez.

Outside the dark pink air was already hot and alive with cries.

New Ending. All over the world the beautiful red breezes went on blowing hand in hand.

then he met Herakles and the kingdoms of his life all shifted down a few notches

XIII. HERAKLES' KILLING CLUB Little red dog did not see it he felt it All events carry but one

Spirit rules secretly alone the body achieves nothing

Photography is a way of playing with perceptual relationships. Well exactly. But you don’t need a camera to tell you that. What about stars? Are you going to tell me none of the stars are really there? Well some are there but some burned out ten thousand years ago. I don’t believe that.

Goodnight children, she called in her voice like old coals. May God favor you with dreams.

It was raining on his face. He forgot for a moment that he was a brokenheart then he remembered. Sick lurch downward to Geryon trapped in his own bad apple. Each morning a shock to return to the cut soul. Pulling himself onto the edge of the bed he stared at the dull amplitude of rain. Buckets of water sloshed from sky

We would think ourselves continuous with the world if we did not have moods.

Geryon was amazed at himself. He saw Herakles just about every day now. The instant of nature forming between them drained every drop from the walls of his life leaving behind just ghosts rustling like an old map. He had nothing to say to anyone. He felt loose and shiny.

Love does not make me gentle or kind, thought Geryon

They continued to sit. They were parked way out on the highway. Cold night smell coming in the windows. New moon floating white as a rib at the edge of the sky.

SPIRIT RULES SECRETLY ALONE THE BODY ACHIEVES NOTHING is something you know instinctively at fourteen and can still remember even with hell in your head at sixteen. They painted this truth on the long wall of the high school the night before departing for Hades.

To deny the existence of red is to deny the existence of mystery. The soul which does so will one day go mad.

a man as beautiful as a live feather.

This is for Ancash, he calls to the earth diminishing below. This is a memory of our beauty. He peers down at the earth heart of Icchantikas dumping all its photons out her ancient eye and he smiles for the camera: “The Only Secret People Keep.

S: I saw everything everyone saw I: Well yes S: No I mean everything everyone saw everyone saw because I saw it I: Did they S: I was (very simply) in charge of seeing for the world after all seeing is just a substance I: How do you know that S: I saw it I: Where S: Wherever I looked it poured out my eyes I was responsible for everyone’s visibility it was a great pleasure it increased daily I: A pleasure you say S: Of course it had its disagreeable side I could not blink or the world went blind

I once loved you, now I don’t know you at all. He does not say this.

There are a few smiles, many broken teeth, no anger.

There is one thing I want from you. Tell me. Want to see you use those wings.

It is a photograph he never took, no one here took it.

In those days the police were weak Family was strong

Are there many little boys who think they are a Monster? But in my case I am right said Geryon to the Dog

The red world And corresponding red breezes Went on Geryon did not

MEANWHILE IN HEAVEN

His grandmother sat at the picnic table eating toast and discussing death.