I found myself laughing

I found myself laughing
And the self did say
Something, though I would,
I could not repeat.

In this laugh was a
Secret
Holding me to they, the one they, the total they,
The they of play and fixity

It was in them,
I found him,
And in him I found them

His name is Augustine
And in him I find Augustus,
But it is the prior gust
I seek, both Caesar
And slave, exalted
And crucified
Finalized and continued

There is a sense
That the laugh picks up
Where it left off

I picked up the first book
And I laughed
Such as Sarai had done
Doubting the tribes in
Her husband’s wrinkled
Test.

What sort of test?
Testicular, male, globes of potential
Nested in amongst marrow-less
Femurs
Empty bones, dry bones
Ezekiel laughed, he must have
Burning dung, lying on one side as
He did
Laughing at the past, laughing at the future
Modernity: who would lie, lay even
Who would lay such an old feller like he
Laying about
Wrinkled
With the smell of shite not so far off.

Laugh I tell you, laugh.
I picked up Augustine in his 44th year,
And I chortled at his childishness,
Playing with figuration as we was,
At the feet of God:
Do heaven and earth, then contain the whole of you, since you fill them?
Or,
When once you have filled them, is some part of you left over because they are too small to hold you?

If this is so, when you have filled heaven and earth, does that part of you which remains

Flow over into some other place?

God, do you laugh, filled up with you as you are?
Is there room for a belly shaking good howl?

If you were to laugh, would you laugh with
Sarai, laugh against Sarai? Would you laugh with
Abram, as he came against his humanity,
Would you laugh with him?

Would you laugh through him?
And laughing impregnate Mary,
By yourself, for yourself,
Against humanity, with humanity,
Laughing through the couplet,
Down through the cervix,
Out near the labia, and into the outro.

You Father were in the outro and the intro,
Above the Cross, on the Cross, below the Cross,
There was a moment, where I thought you cried,
Laughing, facing death,
Breathing in, committing spirit, unto
Yourself.

Where did you go for those three days?

I’m not laughing. You rent the veil;
Did you need to return it?
You wore the robe, did you need to mend it?

Dark comedy here? Feels a little sacrilege
To laugh at such a disappearance.

There is a pit, a wonderful pit,
In which the Father hides,
Is that where you went?
Into the tent? Beyond the curtain,
Home from the pig farm,
Donning the ring and the robe
Eating the slain lamb?

Is this a joke?
(three days passed without a laugh)

I guess not.

Up from the belly he a laughed,
Which a mighty snicker he did come,
He arose, a Victor, to be broken and eaten,
To be eaten and broken, till the end of days

He a laughed, he a laughed,
Hallelujah, he a laughed.