Reading Day 3
Signifier and SignifiedES #lyricalessay, #stone, #meanings, #multiplicity
S-T-O-N-E Stone. Stone is our sound-image. Our signifier. But is it ‘a stone’, or ‘to stone’, or ‘the stone’? Your signifieds are innumerable. ‘A stone’. I can hold you in my hand. You are soft and warm, basking in rays of summer sun. I run my fingers up and down you, circling your flat surface; caressing you. I stop in my tracks and face the water. Breath in the cool, wet, salty ocean air. I flick my wrist back. Once, then twice, and the third time I fling you forward, right back where you belong. Out into the ocean. Where the water can endlessly caress your skin. With every wave your shape changes. You crash into your friends, and the chances rise of you cracking in half. A broken body at sea. I wonder what your insides look like. Are they grey, or marbled? You might not know yet either. You’ve left my hand and I move on. Under my feet the stones crunch as they grind up against one another, and give way underneath me. Where does the first layer of stone begin, on this endless stretch? Where does the floor end? You are unstable but still you support me. I sit down and you crowd around me, moulding yourselves to the shape of my body. When I lie down, arms stretched out beside me, I feel your irregularities. They are fixing the kinks in my back. ‘A stone’s’ signified is a piece of rock found on the ground. It is the piece of rock that travels from here to there; that is picked up, and replaced or misplaced. How did you all get here? Crowded on this shingle beach, bunched up, one on top of the other. You were born as the ocean water passed over you, washing over you, with lines of loose stone particles. Like sandpaper. Now you are smooth to the touch. Now you are dormant on land, waiting to return to sea, to be remoulded. Stone is the pebble that crosses boundaries and borders. From land to sea. From the beach, to collectors’ hands, to home. From beach, to industry, to construction site; becoming the neighbours new driveway. But ‘a stone’s’ signified is also weighted. You have a weight to you as you lie in my hand, ready to be thrown away. But it is not heavy enough. We are looking for 6.35 kg. Your name is used to measure my weight, but not your own. Maybe you are 1/100 of a stone. ‘To stone’. They use you to stone objects. They use you to stone cars in protest. They use you to stone people. Stoning as a method of capital punishment. They hurl you at people until that person dies from blunt trauma. But we also stone fruit. We remove the stone; remove
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