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).