Metaphysical Erotica: Ode to Ishtar

Anyone who says metaphysics and erotica don’t mix is entitled to their own opinion. But the Ode to Ishtar shows that the two are inextricably connected. Of course, spirituality and erotica both come in a variety of guises, many of which will prove to be incompatible.

No, this isn’t about petty puritanism or prurient pornography. It’s not about the abnegation of our natural instincts or the objectification of the opposite sex. This is the kind of erotica that leads us into the field where all things are connected. With a subtle awareness of this higher reality, the body and spirit move upward in a celebration of life.

Through this sacred dance, the spirit can lead to the erotic, and the erotic can provoke the divine. When the higher consciousness is stimulated, who knows where it might lead?

Pagan cults and rituals have celebrated this marriage of the sacred and the profane since time immemorial. Who, after all, can deny the link between Creation and pro-creation? And the ancient religions were anything but misogynistic. In fact, they worshipped the goddess above all else.

It was not until the last one or two thousand years, and the ascendency of monotheism, that sex for enjoyment came to be considered dirty and sacrilegious. God the Father, and His son, who oddly dwell in heaven without the mother and wife, frowned upon this sort of salacious amusement. As a result, western civilization and the Catholic church drove the erotic into the shadows, relegating it to the realm of dirty little secrets.

The following poems harken back to the days of fertility cults and temple prostitutes, when nature was still a force to be honored, rather than a foe to be conquered. So I hope they manage to arouse your natural spirits and instincts without a sense of shame or guilt.

Ode to Ishtar, Dame of the Matrix

In a desolate desert where peaches are scarce
An oasis appears and a goddess prepares
To seduce her next partner with apples and pairs
And proposing a union she takes me upstairs

Into the skyline and over the weather
To a room in the clouds we inhabit together
The book of life opens, she reads me my rites
Informing my dreams for a thousand more nights

Our foreplay, like Gospel, begins with a word
Whispering wisdom and secrets unheard
While waves of effulgence wash over my ears
And unspeakable lightness conveys me to tears

The courtship completed she lifts up her veil
Undresses her figure and shows me her tail
Her gown on the floor in a soft silky heap
And we drift to the bedroom where cherubin sleep

Melting like butter, collapsing before her
Her miracle strength has me backed in a corner
And so I surrender, no use to resist
Beaten by Ishtar, I wait to be kissed

She spreads herself open, unnaturally wide
Receiving my body and spirit inside
Inserting my tome like a book on her shelf
We form an anthology, bound in one self

No match for a goddess and giver of life
And yet we conjoin as a husband and wife
The muse and the poet are spun in one strand
Just see how my pen is now firm in her hand

With one leg in heaven and one in my bed
I recline and receive her celestial head
Arousing my mind and exchanging our dreams
Through visions that swim in ethereal streams

Perusing her volumes and rarely seen stacks
A scholar who studies the shadows and cracks
I reach out to fondle her wavydark hair
Her substance reflecting like dust in the air

I dip in her inkwell again and again
In search of the words that will flow from my pen
Receiving and giving, a cycle unending
Eternal rewards from the muse I’m befriending

---

Accolades of Aphrodite

A goddess lay resting one cold winter night
On a soft bed of jasmine she sighed with delight
Warm in her blankets with dreams in her eyes
Sleeping for beauty and gaining her prize
Well after dawn she woke from her slumber
She rolled to her side and she trembled like thunder

Deep down inside, a familiar sensation
A twitch in her loins, in need of attention
Smooth slender fingers traversing her chest
Stroking her belly and squeezing a breast
Cupping herself, her hand overflowed
Gifts to mankind, from heaven bestowed

Massaging her mountains of honey and butter
The touch of the skin sent her body aflutter
She reached for a nipple with finger and thumb
Felt something tingle, and started to hum
Her heart beating faster, her breath now increased
She twisted her torso in need of release

Like greek alabaster, a pillar of marble
A temple of flesh we can worship and marvel
The priestess lay back and explored with her hands
A summons to action, her wetness commands
Caressing her lips and primed to explode . . .
. . . But I’ll need a few minutes to finish this ode

Further Reading

If you liked these passages of Metaphysical Erotica, you’ll be sure to enjoy:

• Metaphysical Poetry
• Limericks about the Muse
• Limericks about Near Eastern Mythology
• Limericks about Goddesses
• What is a limerick?