But the poem is not about hermeneutics generally : it's about a particular 20th-cent. pathology of "secondary" language (ie., language about language, language about texts, hermeneutical writing, theory theory) - a pathology which applies its own secondary character to a definition of all language, language in general: in particular, the various mental products or monkey-screeches of the deconstructionists.

You attack the poem as irrelevant : but you're only able to do this by blurring or effacing the specific target of the satire

Doesn't the poem itself belong to this world of language about language? Wouldn't its critique apply equally to all linguistic endeavours (whether speech utterances of interpretations of utterances) not confined to simple warnings of impending danger, including itself? Are not the deconstructionst's writings the exact opposite of monkey screeches, if the latter are simple warnings of impending danger? To me the object of the satire is already blurred, since the satire could logically be applied to ALL human language. So yes, my critique of the poem depends on drawing a more general lesson than the specific (and rather lame!) critique of "theory" that Lake wants to make. I'm saying, if you rule out the "hermeneutics of suspicion" because you are afraid of being eaten by a lion, you are ruling out a lot of other things that also might get you eaten by a lion.