Phalanthos

Grecian coin showing Phalanthos, dolphin-riding deity, ca. 440 BC. Phalanthos was said to be a boy who forever rode the waves on a dolphin playing his lyre or flute.

Boy on a dolphin playing a flute:
The image is simple and happy,
not very original but always first,
spanking the mind into joy.

Who needs a wife or a mother
when his womb is the sea?
Why study Kant or Heralitos
when you can get the truth
straight from the mouth
of a god’s childhood?
from a god’s childhood?

So dash the waves
cerulean-warm with a foam
of sun-dazzled spray; bounce
his penis happy against
the huge grey flanks of the fish
dancing in the rapture of
child and and water and song.

The music of Phalanthos
is eternal and primeval,
fresh as nurse-milk first
from the uterine breast
of the myth, keeping such
joy forever in view.

So I rememer this morning
my younger brother
surfacing with a nose-
holding splutter in the pool of
our Winter Haven house long ago,

playing all day and forever
in that water, always a boy,
erupting into hot summer
brilliance with surprise
and delight: And I sing.