Well hi. I’m Erato. Or… that’s what the Greeks called me. It’s.. more complex than that. It always is. I’m not a god, you see. I’m a muse. An .. inspiration. I’m not exactly embodied, or rather…. Let me start again. See, there’s a place – where the creative and the … reproductive… urges coincide. Where inspiration bends minds and bodies towards the erotic, the intimate.. and the perverted. Where words weave through minds, caress bodies. Slim syllables running down your chest, wet words falling on your breast, lips and breath shaped around each part of you.. Am I going too fast? Ok fine. I’m the god of talking about fucking.
For centuries, millennia, the changes in the world I saw were wrought by mortals. Busy, each building on what came before, and each passing, while the gods grew steadily quieter, turned in upon themselves. Perhaps that’s why I saw so much in these firefly lives, to join them, to be my own flash of light in the darkness.
A poet must understand words, be comfortable with ambiguity, with misdirection. Where each word must carry itself and the weight of the whole. What do these words you chose evoke, how do they sit beside each other in a mouth (for poems are meant to be read aloud), do they wrestle for space? Do they drip from your lips?
But they are all fuel. Drives. They motivate us, these things we need and desire. Takes us through each day.
You can give them an idea, inspire them to gaze at the stars – but it’s a thousand steps later that a foot lands on the moon.
Does a spirit rage at the water that took her breath? At the cold rock he lay on, bleeding?
“What in HADES have you done, Erato!” It wasn’t even a question. Hera’s demands slammed into me with such force that I stepped back again and again
I suppose it’s like sex on the beach – better in theory than in practice unless you’re well prepared or you really, really like sand. Maybe a cell would be sexier if the bed was softer and the heating worked.
I’d also like to be very clear, if everyone involved isn’t into it, it’s not erotic. It’s not sex. There are plenty of other words for it, use one of them. Need a clear analogy? I can hit you with a frying pan, but that doesn’t make it cooking.
A simple meeting that she chose to call; (But once I entered swiftly locked the door)
It is the spell that words weave, the heart that skips, the stomach clenching, the ache behind your eyes as you feel the loss, the pain, the gasp, the relief of triumph.
They want me to prove I’m qualified! Me! I mean really. I’m only the inspiration of erotic poetry incarnate.
How to write an erotic poem for your lady friend
Begin by choosing a symbol, or a metaphor,
around which to twist the threads of your desire,
into a sweater of seduction.
I mean – so I’m a muse. Specifically the muse of erotic poetry. I’ve been hanging around humans since they discovered that the right words in the right order were even more effective at instilling reproductive enthusiasm than those fermented grapes were.
