A poem deconstructing itself in homage to Barthes and Derrida (for Wendy if she can decode it)

I dreamed a dream profound and wise
about the state of man:
the brain a mass of wriggly worms,
the mind an old tin can..

The first word presents the semiotic question
of authorial authority:
is this a real person recounting
a ‘real’ dream, insofar as
dreams are ‘real’, and thus
presenting the authority of detached observation
(insofar as accepted structures of waking,
sleeping, dreaming, etc., are assumed,
thus ‘fictitious’ in an absolute sense)

or, is this a hermeneutic introductory opening
implying a proairetic forward movement?

moving on rapidly to the whole first line,
what is the authorial stance in ‘profound and wise’?
is the ‘author’ asserting the semantic truth of this dream,
or is this a lexia which is presented to the reader to resolve
in his or her own reading?
or is simply buttressing the symbolic integrity
of the ontological construct presented?

jeezus the more I read the deconstruction
the more I think the first verse could be true

poem by Michael Shepherd
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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