THE NOUMENA

The king of laughter came around, yapping
about a woman who fascinates him totally,
slamming his strong square head in the freezer.
Talking about the noumena, the expanse of the unknown
that frisks us when we wake deeply,
he fell through the kitchen floor in a riot
of clothing that discarded light.
He bellowed from the basement and leapt
singed and grinning
up through the gaping linoleum to stand on the edge
suddenly munching a zucchini, asking between bites
how the world economy should be melted into happiness
by a fire dance, how he should be first in a conga line,
how he should fuck, finally.

The king of laughter has a pain in his side
from a rotten rib, he still reads the Bible,
but only the dirty parts.  He visits
because the outdoors, he says, only insults the sky,
even in the woods, even on a mountaintop,
he can feel the inadequate architecture.

When the king of laughter has exhausted
the night-life, he finds a stone apartment
and lies down.  His snore is an engine
that starts it all up again.
In the hung afternoon
he is leaning against pines
with his cereal bowl full of blood flakes,
he is like Oscar the Grouch with a hard-on.
His audience waits in a thicket of earth-dreams,
he moan to bring 'em through a galactic cervix,
his bed is still wide open but now
he can't lie down.