Friday, June 01, 2012

OF SIGNS AND COSIGNS


THE BARTHES IN YOU

Wants a signifier
Sum unrequited subtext
molecular letters
stated symbolically
buy a drunken tattoo
tavern cryptograph ≠ bar code
scanned lines numbering
Sin, Neck, Dough, Key
too, lips radiating 
hot pennies on a cool palm
excited as electrons
Roland on the river
that digit in her mouth
a sapiosexual cosign
trembling with desire

Been playing with this for a while, not sure how important the layout is. Of course Barthes famously killed the author with his later semiotic theories. (It was all I could do to resist a "death of the Arthur" pun) Not a cat I take all that seriously intellectually, although I agree with a lot of what he was trying to do, but like Derrida he mistook the failings of Structuralism for the failings of language itself. And as any soldier can tell you, the map aint the territory. Can one use Post-Structuralist Theories to construct an erotic poem? Why not? I think most of the puns are fairly obvious but (Sin, Neck, Dough, Key = Synecdoche) probably isn't, just because few people actually know how to pronounce the word. Every once in a while I write a poem and not care if everybody doesn't get it, this would be one of those poems. I hope Harryette Mullen finds this sapiosexy though, that might make my decade.

Until next we meet, may all your potatoes be sweet (and dusted with cinnamon).

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