Shota-ku

"Shota-ku" is a contemporary pedophile verse form invented by Dylan Thomas, former webmaster of www.boychat.org.

Shota-ku consists of lines of seven, eleven, and five syllables, and traditionally expresses poetic admiration for a teenage boy's beauty, sexual dynamism, and "death," whether in the sexual or mortal sense. Shota-ku are often inserted in larger compositions, serving to mark high points of pedophile sentiment, and are traditionally read by small cliques of soft-spoken gentlemen, who meet quarterly at the four great festivals of the pedophile year: Winter IBLD (solstice) the spring Strawberry Festival, Summer IBLD, and Halloween.

THE AWARD

!!1000 INTERNETS!! for any student who submits a hand-written shota-ku as part of official coursework, gets hand-written teacher commentary on the paper, and posts a scan of it here!!!!

THE POEMS

For Sam Manzie

Eddie Werner, victim of Sam Manzie, victim of Stephen Simmons

Sam Manzie: Pedophile victim, Pedophile murderer, Smashing Pumpkins fan

	“	. . . (Was there something beautiful Inside a teenage softskincandywrapper? Art in smashed pumpkins?)	„
	—Dylan Thomas

Doing Time: Twenty-five years of Prison Writing, page 259. From "Sam Manzie", lines 17-19.

Although the Village Voice article on Sam Manzie is good, it is particularly interesting to watch the mainstream media wake up to the presence of the goddess of the internet and the particular kinds of sacrifices she demands in this Newsweek article: Did the net kill Eddie?

oh noes! How do I shot stag!?!?!?

Mark Indelicato -- Hubba Hubba!

Boy --> Cypress Tree. Geddit?

Anonymous Stag

	“	Green leaves on a tall brown trunk, But not a happy symbol in Tuscany. My Cyparissus!	„
	—Didaskalos

mew, mew, mew

IRL Shota-Kitten!

	“	IRL Shota Kitten How I chookle your divine feline essence... So cute and so blind.	„
	—Didaskalos

Seneca's Phaedrus, line 761-3

I dunno, looks kinda pixilated to me...

Anceps forma bonum mortalibus
exigui donum breve temporis
ut velox celeri pede laberis!
This 3-line ejaculation, lines 761-3, (which can be metrically described as [4 x {Dactyl, Spondee}]) is the rhetorical climax of a carefully structured metrical show-piece, a choral hymn to young male beauty. (736-823)

• 736-752 A
• 753-760 B
• 761-763 C <----The lines in question
• 768-823 Lots of B
• (No return to A; play continues with Act 3 in "normal" Iambic Trimeter)

Various gods are listed, and at the climax the doomed Hippolytos is said to be prettier than them all....BUT only for a short time! The cherry-blossom falls; and line 762 is the very slash of the sword terminating the vision, and thus making it immortal. Young death, of course, is implied in "short-lived." For 3 lines, the chorus rings with the spiritual exaltation of beholding the very "form" of beauty. I'm thinking of the Japanese aesthetics of NOZOKU, or peeping-tom....

• This would be a "normal," fairly literal translation, emphasizing the visual and spiritual over the physical:
  

Beauty is not given to mortals forever:
A brief moment's gracious glimpse...
And rapidly your swift feet carry you away.

• And this would be a "shota-ku" translation:

	“	Beauty belongs to the gods. You are here on earth for a very short time, And away you glide!	„