Deckchairs
on a pebble beach,
hands almost touching,
fingers brushing.

Deckchairs
on a pebble beach,
excited laughter,
quickening breath.

Deckchairs
on a pebble beach,
sun setting,
night time creeping.

Deckchairs
on a pebble beach,
the child who collected
shells on the shore,
a child no more.

Deckchairs
on a pebble beach,
sandcastle hearts
and tidal wave tears.

Deckchairs
on a pebble beach,
the seaside
will never
be
the same.

In the clefts of a mighty mountain, a single pebble lay. Held in place by only a few flecks of earth, quietly it sat until one warm day the sun  melted the snow on top of a frozen peak. Slowly water dripped down and bit by bit it wore the earth away. Until finally after many seasons of melting snow, the pebble fell loose one day. Falling down the crack in the side of the mountain, the pebble struck a fragile ledge. The weight of the single stone was too much and the ledge gave way. Down it plummeted with it's brother the pebble, down into a ravine along the side of the mighty mountain, crashing with the sound of thunder went the pile of rocks shattering the peace of the whole mountain. Great was the shaking that rattled the mountain to it's core. Then back up the crack from which the pebble had fallen, the ripple caused a rift splitting the mountain asunder. Then what was once a single mountain was split in twain. Leaving twin peaks and a vast gap where a single pebble once had been.

I am grounded by my own ignorance, he thought, and here, by the sheer complexity of things. This pebble at my feet seems the very centre of a radius  - of marks and pathways. Possibilities. It is a thing that connects itself with me. It is very early, before the sun has touched the horizon’s sky.

I recall a poem telling of the perfection of pebbles, their being equal to themselves, mindful of their limits, filled exactly with a pebbly meaning, with a scent which does not remind one of anything, does not frighten anything away, does not arouse desire, its ardour and coldness full of dignity.

I now remember another poem, portraying a pebble placed in a child’s hand, picked up on a pebble ridge. A pebble to place in the pocket where we finger it until it becomes warm. Its shape and certainty is firm and sure. It consoles us. And, as we change and decay, it remains lodged with us: a thing that contains nothing save the mystery of life.

And there is a long prose poem devoted to the pebble. It starts at the beginning of time itself with a condensed cosmogony, describing the formation of the first rock as an allegory of The Fall. It ventures through the expulsion of life, to cooling, to those large tectonic plates, and all the way down to the pebble itself, or, as the poet says, the "kind of stone that I can pick it up and turn it over in my hand". Time is everywhere in this poem: Stone as Time, where the great wheel of stone rolls ever on as plant life, animals, gases and liquids revolve quite rapidly in their cycles of dying. Take this as the poet’s view of humanity: to consider all things as unknown, and to begin again right from the beginning.

We need to take the side of things, he thought. Here, this pebble is time, and where this pebble lies, with its radii of marks, seems at the very centre of things. It was brought anonymously by the tide one stormy night to lie at our feet, and looks at us with *a calm and very clear eye.

Freedom was close to me.  
She never did want me to see.
A pain undone
That nobody could bear to run.
  
I went to a few concentration camps.
There were several big lamps.
They searched in the dark black nights.
They held all my frights.
  
Then came my pebbles.
One was round and marble smooth.
There was no dull for its color shone
I bid farewell to the dullness of life and the dullness of prison.
  
Size was fair in my twisted little game.
Pebble One.                           Pebble Me.
Pebble Two.                           Pebble Brother.
Pebble Three.                        Pebble Mother.
Pebble Four.                          And Pebble Father.
One was found.                     I saved my life.
Two was found.                     Welcome Brother.
Three was found.                  Hello, Mother.
  
Where was Four?
I would bother to save my Father.
There it was.
My hidden rocks.
One, two, three and four.
  
Some say that there is tricky feat called a cheat.
That is not what I am.
To cheat means one is beat.
  
I am not what beat is.
I am what a treat is.
Mother shall have her house.
Brother shall boast in his bed.
I will have all the bread.
Father will have freedom that is not forlorn.
  
The pebbles are what kept us alive.
It is as if we are stuck under a beehive.
One came out to sting.
With that sting it took every single thing.
  
The Russians came after many years.
I would have cried but I had no tears.
My life was fuller.
My soul gained strength.
Marion B.  
Had the strength to know when to flee.

Read the fourth stanza whichever way you want to, one column, two columns, one full stanza, etc.
Freedom was close to me.  
She never did want me to see.
A pain undone
That nobody could bear to run.
  
I went to a few concentration camps.
There were several big lamps.
They searched in the dark black nights.
They held all my frights.
  
Then came my pebbles.
One was round and marble smooth.
There was no dull for its color shone
I bid farewell to the dullness of life and the dullness of prison.
  
Size was fair in my twisted little game.
Pebble One.                           Pebble Me.
Pebble Two.                           Pebble Brother.
Pebble Three.                        Pebble Mother.
Pebble Four.                          And Pebble Father.
One was found.                     I saved my life.
Two was found.                     Welcome Brother.
Three was found.                  Hello, Mother.
  
Where was Four?
I would bother to save my Father.
There it was.
My hidden rocks.
One, two, three and four.
  
Some say that there is tricky feat called a cheat.
That is not what I am.
To cheat means one is beat.
  
I am not what beat is.
I am what a treat is.
Mother shall have her house.
Brother shall boast in his bed.
I will have all the bread.
Father will have freedom that is not forlorn.
  
The pebbles are what kept us alive.
It is as if we are stuck under a beehive.
One came out to sting.
With that sting it took every single thing.
  
The Russians came after many years.
I would have cried but I had no tears.
My life was fuller.
My soul gained strength.
Marion B.

Early on, we passed this pebble between us,
each in turn
trying to avoid possessing it.
The pebble
is worn smooth,
each palming it off on the other,
refusing to
acknowledge it even exists
so we don't have to talk
to each other.

After all, it's a tiny pebble.
A pebble of non-communication, but tiny.
Nothing to it.

Over the years the pebble becomes
a stone, albeit a small one -
more conspicuous,
more awkward.
The words between
us grow sparse, and if we do speak,
the words are sharper,
more piercing as we attempt to disown
the stone.

But by now the stone is a boulder, massive,
like some squat, ugly beast it has come between us,
pushing us out of our lives, what was our home,
the dreams
we were going to share,
the dreams
we would once talk about.

--

she whispers. "hey."

"hm?"

"you're my boulder."

he chuckles. "what?"

"you're my boulder. you're
stronger than a rock. you're
the one who keeps me
from losing myself. you're
the one who keeps me
grounded. you are my boulder."

he grimaces. "but if i'm a boulder
then i'd crush you...i would
hurt you."

she laughs quietly. "well then, you're
a gentle boulder.  soft and fluffy and
all that stuff."

he stifles a laugh. "so do i just have
a bunch of fluffy green moss
growing on me?"

she nods. "you're
my big, gentle, sweet, moss-covered
boulder."

he smirks. "well...
then i guess you're
my pebble."

she looks into his eyes. "how so?"

"you're my pebble. you're
small but not easy to break. you're
seemingly fragile but you're
stronger than you look. you're
part of me and you're
the one who can either break me
or make me whole. you are my pebble."

she smiles
and he wraps his soft green sweatshirt
that he's wearing
around her
shoulders. "mine."

she murmurs. "my boulder."
he whispers. "my pebble."

and finally,
both of them
are found
as they gaze at the stars
and into each other's eyes.

oh i didn't write something to change the boundaries,
i wanted to capture the digital narrative,
or how the hope of destroying all forms of theology
with our a.i. gravitas, we started to
apply the digital anaesthetic -
and cradle the numbing effects of:
                 us, in experiment,
or: us, in a medium of synthetic material...
             either way pushing us apart friom actually
inhabiting organic matter...
           the many of us these these are merely pawn
in the game...
                  we're pawns in a construction site
of all thing theretical... meaning it's truly 2D by comparison
to the 3D structures we see...
       the element that will truly give a.i. it's ego?
wait wait... why with latin dead and me not speak it
but i have this theoretical baggage of ego?
            ego is only short of en egg should i decide to
write it... arbeit macht frei must come from
counter-conceptualisation of the remains of the roman
empire with self- (hyphen included), to remind people
that it's all about work, and how we will either loose
or free ourselves from the re in the setting sun to echo aeons...
that might be the case...
            but find me a modern day writer who has
to use this medium of people talking over one another...
find me a writer who''s lodged in the internet like
a cherry atop a cake...
          who can't be gagging for a log cabin in some obscure
place, who has to be in the thick of it...
       i'm not writing to change the world,
i'm writing to describe the status quo...
            qua norm, or should i say "norm"...
from status quo comes the question: qua status?
     when i write i think about throwing a pebble into
a lake, compared to throwing a pebble into a river...
compared to throwing a pebble into a sea...
to be honest? throwing a pebble into a sea is
the most involving...
                  and there is poetic subconscious in this,
which i will unearth: the pebble is supposed to mean this:
the three forms of water are supposed to represent
another this:
                                 the pebble is supposed to represent
a soul, a concentration of my my, my sigma (total),
and the three tiers of water are supposed to represent this...
that said, i watched
    an internet video... by angry mgtow...
an answer to white women are rejecting beta males now /
blonde in the belly of the beast...
   first thing: why are men using the internet
deemed more "creepy" than women?
    we've already embarked on this a.i. project for the sole
reason as to overcome theological argument and
religion... we are living in a Frankenstein experiment,
but the "problem" is that we're only working on
the software package of the beast...
         the hardware can wait... we're not going to replace
our fondness for busdrivers and cleaners any time soon...
  we love our manual labourers...
                  american woman! stay away from me!
american woman! mama let me be!
   (it's daily, over and over in my head, that line and
many more kindred sing-alongs)
   we've already been drafted into creating the software
of the a.i. beast, it doesn't matter that the
hardware is already there but that we've stalled its
potential... the software is harder to be bound to
the logistics a limb might be drafted to exhibit basic
tongue of movement...
          all compliments to women:
they're the irrationality that will give the a.i. the spark!
           meaning autonomy...
  and how could i not even sound like an atypical man?
don't date the opposite ***?
              tease urban living with what life's like in
the middle-zone of outer-urbanity, i.e. the case of
a ******* bungalow? ha ha.
                              but this video got me like i might
catch a herring, and i do love pickled herrings...
raw pickled herrings...  it just got me
when i said: i'd like to move to the Faroe Islands...
no please, spare me the misery...
                         it's hard not to be
sexually antagonistic (sexist) - esp. when you're
not a sheikh with a motorboat and a fluffy moustache
that might brush-up against the ******* like
a vibrating ***** while you taste the pastries of flesh
with a saintly glee...
             every time i performed oral ***
on her i felt i left that hot-spot having slobbered
a tonne of lard... smeared a tonne of ****** cream and
that my face became phosphorescent, or an anglerfish:
which is the first sign before you don't even
bother to care to launch a space mission apollo 13
into the depths containing stars... or ask
      ridley scott...
                          i think he's the one dubbed:
coping mechanism... unlike philip k **** this guy's
a coping mechanism, a rare spectacle:
science fiction obstructs actual science...
                     i'm glad he's around and i pray that
we truly explore the depths of seas before going up
there: where the sun don't shine.
                  but this video got to me...
                i can't relate to it, either with the masculine
theory or the feminine experience...
i don't know: it almost feels like i live in a time
capsule at the best part of the 20th century when
i could still buy compact discs in a music shop
on a high-street... when there was no over-arching
agarophobia and claustrophobia telling us
when it was worthwhile to leave the house...
   and when it wasn't...
                         i opened another bottle of wine
that i made myself, and i don't know...
                  we started by ridding ourselves of god
to later replenish that end with a death of us,
it's almost as if we're staging parameters of being human
in this 2D construction site, on the basics:
merely exchanging opinions...
                                         i have, coming naturally:
this curiosity with the internet...
   i remember times of hotmail.com chatrooms...
      it's not as old as some people will claim the burden
to be, but the times when the ****** medium was
being sold to us... before facebook and subsequently otherwise
people were still very much comfortable before the television
set... but then people became less interested in
music and decided music could only exist in software
and not hardware, and i started to forage the berry shrubs of
youtube for music...
  i hope i don't precipitate any thought toward
nostalgia... bearing in mind i did establish myself
on the memory of having been to the cinema
to watch the films blow and austin powers 2:
the spy who shagged me - and in the latter case
i laughed at the shadow-scene like i might at
a laurel and hardy... and in the former case i loved
the music... and that's before comedy became too
"intelligent": too canned laughter...
revisionist existentialist, when dittoing can no longer
mean borrowing, or passing on a meaning,
                     or d.n.a. competition, when the end result
is but ~ (approximate) / ambiguity...
    the too intelliget: canned laughter...
                   the last time i really laughed at the movies
i was watching austin powers 2: the spy who shagged me...
the tent scene... it was the epitome of comedy,
a laurel and hardy slap stick incantation of a viewer...
   i guess it only comes with a sense of an individual
finding something so simple funny, that when
the same individual is dropped like a paratrooper into
a cinema audience: his laughter will become akin to
a virus, and thus become infectious and the individual
in mind because the cursor for canned laughter
later stored, to witness a televised episode of Friends
or Fraiser... which... would you believe it: aren't funny at all.
what was i going on about in the first place?
      ha ha... dunno... which makes Nick Harper a comic
genius... every time i see him
i laugh like a tickled ******* dangling off a bull horn
and two words ring a bell: mein shawl! and yes: it's
dramatically flinged, like i might be found
******* against the wind...
   quick question! five easy pieces rebel or cool hand
luke rebel?!

I found a pebble today
and tomorrow, I will drop it in your bag.

One day, when you are
lying alone on your floor
and your skin
feels like smooth, white plastic,
you will find this pebble
lying beside you.

One day, when you are
fighting someone to save your life,
this pebble will fly out
of your wild hair,
and land in that person's eye.

And every time you look at me
this pebble will itch,
stuck in the folds of the dresses
covering your body.

You might flick it away then,
but you will never notice
that at home, it will lie
quietly between your shoes
and give you company.

Once Upon A Time…

I was a rock
Strong and proud as rock may be
Nothing could be more fulfilling than to be that rock
When you are looked upon as the symbol of strength
Always being that strength for all time
How strong it feels to be the rock
Over time I was eroded in a mere pebble
All that could chisel me down came like a storm
Everything that gave me strength was destroyed
Sometimes even the rock needs something to lean on
But the sands of the foundation
That which once was my own rock
Drifted away
Down the hill to where it lay
Tumbling down
In a downward spiral
Bashed to pieces
I became just a pebble
A concise pebble was me
With full conscience
Of my former self
I lay now next to the grass
And in time we became closer
Yet again time was not the friend
And the storms came and washed the grass down
Down the hill myself I rolled
As that foundation too was gone
Fate as it be
I found refuge next to the grass
And the sand was kind
It rolled gently beneath
Now I covered and gave the root of my grass
Sanctuary and a place to flourish
And together we gave joy to each other
Here on earth
Looking at the wonderment of sky

Tossing and turning
In my bed –
A pebble.
Slowly I am rocked by
Waves of dreams
Until I am no more than sand
On the shore of my pillow,
Gritty between the sheets.

With the dawn
Tide rolls out.
All manner of sea creatures,
Each more complex than the last,
Rest on my chest as I breathe
Deeply and try to recall
What it was to be a stone.

Abandoned shells,
Beautiful but
Empty
Lay between my fingers.
Shards of glass fall into the depths and
Wash up
On my toes
Sharp edges gone.

I cannot decide if I like
These things
Or if I would rather return
To being a pebble