"Noh," said the Sex Friend, playfully.

Here follows the opening LitEx of Spring 2011 (Anno Philolectico 209, Meeting whateveritwas), courtesy of the brilliant Ms. Casiello, the society's most recent Broad Abroad. Hold onto your hats, folks: the first bit's a translation of a Noh play; the second's a translation of some "Yes" play (well, we and TBTN can only hope).

From the Noh play Kiyotsune, by Zeami: Ending section.

When I fell into the realm of hell

Yes, when I fell into the realm of hell

The trees standing around me transformed into enemies

The rain became their falling arrows

The ground their piercing swords

The mountains were their iron castle

Bearing the clouds as their standards

The soldiers readied their swords of arrogance

Their eyes gleamed with malice

With the lust, the envy, the wrath, the foolishness

That are the sins of all beings

Illusions and truth battled fiercely

One, striking like the waves

the other, pulling like the tide

They revealed to me the karma

Of my battles in the Western Seas

But that was only until now!

For at the last moment of my life,

I cried out to the Buddha for salvation

Now, I stand in the ship of the true law.

Since he asked for salvation, since he never doubted,

Kiyotsune, through his pure heart

Kiyotsune, through his pure heart

Has reached Buddhahood

Truly what a miracle this is!

From Sex Friend by Hishizawa Kugetsu

Background: Fujinori is a loser college student who lives in a tiny apartment. Takasu is a super hot guy who decides to move in with him because of some really transparent plot device reason.

"I thought your place seemed too neat, but really you just don't have anything here," Takasu said. "First time I've seen a room that didn't have a single CD."

"I don't listen to music that much."

"But it also looks like you don't watch TV or read magazines. Is that your only connection to the outside world?" Takasu was pointing at the laptop on top of the bookshelf pushed tight against the bed. What's this guy trying to say, thought Fuminari.

"You don't have any hobbies?"

"I guess not," Fuminori said shortly, having already been asked.

"What do you do for fun? Are you always at your girlfriend's house or something?"

"No girlfriend. I go on walks." He couldn't come up with a single thing he did besides go to school, work, or his apartment. He did kind of like walking with no place to go.

"Walk, and then? What?"

"Nothing really."

"Isn't that weird?"

"It feels nice to work the muscles, right?"

Takasu shrugged. Why was this guy smiling so wryly at him?

"Well, you don't need to keep standing. Sit down over here." He patted the space beside him. Fuminori ignored it and instead sat closer to the edge of the bed.

He stretched his legs out and began massaging his tense calves, his mind drifting off, thinking about what he was going to do for dinner—when suddenly, he felt something touch the small of his back.

"What are you doing?"

When he turned around, he heard a voice from lower down say, "Hmm?" Takasu was lying on his belly with his chin propped on his hand, the other hand stretched out towards Fuminori's back.

"I wondered what sort of body a person who walks a lot has."

"Huh?"

"You're not that thin. I thought you might be kind of scrawny." As he spoke, he grabbed his hip bone and Fuminori's shoulders jolted slightly.

"That tickles."

"Sorry." Takasu sat up quickly. He wrapped his arms around Fuminori from behind and pulled his shoulders close.

"Takasu?"

Fuminori could feel his hard chest against his back. Takasu's hands crossed in front of his chest and he was enclosed within Takasu's wide shoulders and long legs, so of course, he started to get suspicious.

"Hold still for a minute."

Before he had a chance to protest, Takasu's fingers undid the button on Fuminori's jeans and traced the seam of his underwear.

"What are you really after?" Fuminori asked, Just as he was about to tell him he couldn't leave his hands in such a risky position, as though about to slip inside, Takasu asked curiously, lips against Fuminori's ear, "Hmm? Is it so surprising?"

"Yeah, I'm asking because I'm surprised."

Twisting his body around so he could look over his shoulder into Takasu's eyes, he saw a face innocent of all evil intent.

"No, I just figured—I'll have to return your present, so instead, I'll give you my body as thanks."

Couldn't he have just helped me move that vase, Fuminori thought, and sighed. Of course not.

Those gentle eyes so close to his moved from Fuminori's for only a moment. His long eyelashes lowered slightly, his line of sight dropping to Fuminori's lips.

He wasn't so immature that he didn't understand the atmosphere of the moment. What Takasu was planning, he didn't know, but this had all the marks of a kiss.

...

[whereupon Ms. Casiello left some of us in the proverbial lurch—and others, who couldn't restrain themselves, reaching for a postprandial cigarette.]

Kilmer 2010: Winner ("OH Tea Party ME!")

OH Tea Party ME!

by Gerard Leone, Penn '07

(Due to the content of the poem, it has been assumed that the typos are intentional—every last one of them. - Ed.)

Truth, America

TRUTH, America

Where is the TRUTH America?

Where is the Truth Moose America?

Where is the Silly Goose America?

WASHINGTON- The truth moose comes from the country

And dies stabbed by Masonic Pentagrams Inscribed into Capital Map

BY FRENCH PEOPLE

Meanwhile the Silly Goose comes from Harvard

And lays golden eggs that are not golden eggs but chocolate eggs in gold foil

Which is not even American-style chocolate

But Turkish Delight which comes from the Narnia Books

But it’s Turkish so its MUSLIM!

WHY DO YOU LET YOUR GOOSE KILL YOUR MOOSE AMERICA?

Youth, America

YOUTH, America

Where is the Youth in America?

When we were kids there was no health care

SO WHERE IS THE YOUTH, America?

Where are bobby socks and the FONZ and Lawrence Welk and Armless Thaldomide Babies

There was no sickness, even when I was sick there was no sickness, that wasn’t sickness

That was Cancer, but not CANCER—Which is like a gay guy looking at you in the shower

That is cancer, eternal cancer, and how he takes care of his body

CANCER—AWFUL CANCER—the gays in their tight jeans which hug their buttockses

THE FONZ, THE YOUTH, AMERICA?

THE FONZ does not need Healthcare

Who needs healthcare? The Youth in Asia

But the youth in asia is euthanasia

ASIA YOUTH, KILLS AMERICANS

THEY ARE GOING TO KILL AMERICANS

Roof America

The Roof AMERICA

THE ROOF, THE ROOF, America

It’s on FIRE

Because there’s a shooter on the ROOF AMERICA

and he’s taking aim because it hot on a roof that’s on fire

I AM ON FIRE, oo oooh oooh I’m on fire

Hey little girl is your daddy home

Did he go and leave you all alone because he’s fighting the Fire in America?

AMERICA YOU ARE ON FIRE

A fire that burns inside like heart burn

And itches like a hemorrhoid...buttockses that burn in the night

Like ass lanterns in the dark BURN ASS LANTERN

SHOW ME the roof that burns but does not burn

The books that burn but do not burn with GOD

Give me a book depository that will save me

A book depository filled with old copies of

The road to serfdom and vhs cassettes of FREE TO CHOOSE

Rose and Milty Freidman were bald, but she was on FIRE

FIRE FOR AMERICA

Not like Hayek who was an Austrian Aristocrat

We do not need Aristocrats in America

NO QUEENS NO SIRES

NO phds and Esquires

FIRE FIRE FIRE AMERICA- FIRE THE PRESIDENT FIRE AT THE PRESIDENT FIRE THE LIAR PRESIDENT LIAR LIAR MIRE CHOIR ASS LANTERN AMERICA

Couth America,

The COUTH, America

It’s a French word

FRANCE IS NOT AMERICA

AMERICA IS AMERICA

FRANCE IS ONE LETTER AWAY FROM CANCER

FRANCER- no its two additional letters the C and the R AT THE END and subtract the F and the R

so, really it’s minus two plus two it comes out even

FRANCE IS CANCER

Couth? America? You want to be couth? Like the gay guys in France?

With their galois and the jeans so tight

And the gyrating IT'S NOT SAFE AMERICA

They are circling, the French hawk is circling the eagle’s nest America

The gay hawk, they gyrate, in the widening gyre

They can’t hear the hunter’s call NOBODY CAN HEAR YOUR BABY’s call America

Do you know where you baby is America?

They are there on the internet America, going gay

On the chat rooms where America is misspelled Amercia

The Amer CIA, the CIA does not serve the Americans

Amercia it sounds Spanish, Mexicans Illegal

America itself sounds Spanish, it’s Italian

So dark and swarthy but we’re pure

We can never forget their tight jeans, the outline of their erect...

AMERICA

Booth America

BOOTH, America

We can do it America

Booth it America—

YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN

Booth it or lose it America

MOVE IT America,

We’re stuck in theatre traffic

To apocalypse of John at Madison Square Garden

And we should have left earlier but we were busy

With our constitution reading group

Because it says right there what the founders wanted

And we do what our daddies want

Which was not to tax my flavored waters

Keep you hands off my body OBAMA

When you got your hands on me in my skin tight Jeans

In my teenage dream of America, stop touching me!

BOOTH IT AMERICA, you know what I mean

We’re here in the balcony watching My American Cousin

SEX SEMPER TYRANNUS

Which means

ALWAYS HAVE SEX WITH TYRANTS AMERICA

but leave them in the morning and erase your number from their phone

I’m Leaving America, you’ll never taste my guilt again America

Unless you BOOTH IT AMERICA

Like I said, vote

Vote in the Booth America

That’s all I meant America

AMERICA america................. AMERICA?

Kilmer 2010: First Runner-Up ("Funeral Oration Over the Crater of Senator Theodore Stevens")

Funeral Oration Over the Crater of Senator Theodore Stevens

or: Panegyric to the Apotheosis of a Patriot

by Andrew Hamilton GS '13

My friends, patriots and countrymen. We are gathered here today, not only to crawl from the wreckage of this single-engine amphibious plane and weakly call for help, but also to honor the memory of our fallen hero, the Alaskan of the Century, a towering figure among men and Alaskans: the late United States Senator Theodore Stevens.

My friends, the world will little note nor long remember

The giblets splattered here today

For we cannot consecrate this crater. The brave man scattered here

Has consecrated it far beyond our poor power, and line of sight.

Oh Ted, your fall from grace was swift and askew

Corruption convictions and faulty avionics teamed up on you.

Too soon did vengeful Hovah call you home, young man.

Was it all part of his and the Democrats’ plan?

Or maybe he just wanted to hold you real close.

It’s really cold. Has anyone called for help?

Oh, and those Judases in criminal court

Who Judas’ed you as if for sport

When told that you eternally now dream

Will weep that you’ve escaped their liberal scheme

Oh noble Ted, you embiggened these United States

By half a million square miles, and hundreds of people.

Alas. You’re earmarking vast federal appropriations for projects in heaven now.

I don’t have a cell signal. Does anyone have a signal?

O, Father of the noblest State, that mighty bulwark ‘gainst the Reds,

Even in death you fertilize its tundra’d fields and verdant flower-beds!

To us from failing hands you threw

The briefcase full of unmarked bills

Because banks and ethics panels sure ask a lot of questions, yes they do,

And why can’t some dudes pay for your home improvements if they want to?

Do we have any food? It’s getting dark.

Great Theodore, your Internets have now been sent

To a greater network

Where they cannot be tangled up with all these things going on the Internet commercially.

O, Smart Ted, to disintegrate in burning wreckage betimes away

from tubes where glory does not stay

because those tubes can be filled, they’re not a big truck

not something you just dump something on.

Grand juries can no more touch you now

Than East Coast lawyers can through Alaska’s icy tundras plow

Because they are effete.

Godspeed, Senator.

Godspeed.

Also, I call not it on being eaten first.

and additionally...

Dulce et Decorum Est Pro Loko Mori or, Nanny State 911 and the Four Lokos of the Apocalypse

They came first for the 180-proof Everclear,

and I didn't speak up because I wasn’t an alcoholic.

Then they came for the absinthe,

and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a fancy French guy.

Then they came for the Jews,

and I didn't speak up because I didn’t like Manischewitz.

Then they came for the Four Loko

and by that time no one was left to speak up.

Kilmer 2010: Second Runner-Up ("T")

T

by Misha Solomon CC'14

There is a stove in the kitchen

There is a kettle on the stove T

here is water in the kettle

The water is getting hot

So very hot

So very hot

So very hot

So very loud

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee goes the water

There is a counter in the kitchen

There is a marble countertop on the counter

There is a mug on the marble countertop

I pour the water

The water which had gone weeeeeeeeee

Into the mug

I look deep into the water

And I see you

You are the water

You are so pure

So necessary

So clear

So wet

The water is one part oxygen

You are a breath of fresh air

The water is two parts hydrogen

You use peroxide in your hair

But you are missing something

There is a pantry in the kitchen

There is a shelf in the pantry

There is a box of teabags on the shelf

I take out a teabag

And put it in the tea

I put my teabag in the tea.

I give the water

So plain

So bland

So flavorless

So odorless

So colorless

So watery

I give it flavor

I give it color

I am the teabag

And I realize what you are missing

You are just water

But you need to be tea

You need flavor

You need color

You need odor

You need my teabag

Inside you

I need to put my teabag inside of you

Deep inside your watery self

You need my teabag

I need to teabag you.

We need to make tea.

Kilmer 2010: Third Runner-Up ("Stiletto Boot on the Side of the Highway")

Stiletto Boot On The Side Of The Highway

by Juliana Strawn BC ʻ14

Stiletto boot on the side of the highway

Like my soul.

Broken, dirty, missing a strap.

O, my soul.

Am I nothing more than an old stiletto

tossed aside on the road?

Are my sins visible

like a broken stiletto heel?

Could a beaver live inside me?

Is there any hope for life

in my broken, broken soul?

Despite my Grandfatherʼs protests,

I stop the car

and pull over on the side of the road.

The door creaks when I open it.

Creak creak.

My soul creaks when I open it.

Creak creak.

I need to oil it so it wonʼt creak.

I pick up the stiletto boot.

My soul.

I sniff it.

Is it empty?

No! There is a family of worms in it!

There is life in my soul!

I take the stiletto to my grandfather.

How can this bitter old man understand my awakening?

I place the stiletto boot in his lap.

He cautiously picks it up

and tentatively eats part of it.

A hunger for knowledge.

I think he understands.

Kilmer 2010: Dishonourable Mention ("Oh, the Sex You'll Have!")

Oh, The Sex You’ll Have!

(with apologies to Dr. Seuss)

by Samantha Kuperberg, BC ‘10

Congratulations!

Today is your day.

You’re off to Great Sex!

You’re off and away!

With your brain in your head

And your dick in a box

You’ll do it on a boat

With a goat

And a fox!

You’ll have oodles and noodles and poodles of sex

In a fying car!

Atop a T-Rex!

On a large metal tanker

On a whitewashed fence

On a stack of bibles

In the biblical sense

You’ll try new positions

Like “Cat in the Hat”

Or “Yertle the Turtle”

If you’re into that.

A three-way, a four-way, a five-way or twelve

An orgy, a floorgy—you’re sure to excel!

Except when you don’t.

Because, sometimes, you won’t.

You may wear twenty condoms

But despite how you try

You can get an STD

Or worse—an STI!

There are bumps and lumps in store for you

Herpes, the clap, and syphilis, too!

And maybe a baby—you silly dunce:

Condoms are great—but not twenty at once!

You can get so confused

They said they were clean

And that you were sexy

And that they were 18

You can start to run down

At a break-necking pace

Headed, I fear, toward a most useless place:

The Waiting place.

Waiting for a train to go

Or a bus to come.

Waiting for a syphilis test

Or Babeland to open

Or a call back

From the clinic

With your syphilis test.

Everyone just waiting.

Waiting for the mail to come

Or a bus to go

Or those syphilis results...

They’d—they’d call if there was something wrong, right?

I mean, like, they wouldn’t wait this long if it was positive, right? Right?

Everyone just waiting.

No! That’s not you!

You’ll rush right back in

Once more you’ll ride high

Using two kinds of lube

’Cause you’re that kind of guy

You’ll use whips and chains

You’ll show them your stuff

It’s as if you’re Duffman

And your sex is Duff

And do give directions

If they’re planning to drive

You want them to come

But, also, arrive.

Oh, the sex you’ll have! There is fun to be done!

You’ll go straight past first, and score a home run!

And when you’re out there, with your bat and your ball,

You will have sexy sex—the sexiest of all.

Fame! You’ll be famous—not a bit, but the most

Remember your time with that fox and that goat?

You’ll be on display from sea to sea

With the whole wide world watching on TV

The late-night HBO special titled “Three’s Company”—

Except when they don’t.

Because, sometimes, they won’t.

I’m afraid that sometimes

You’ll play lonely games, too,

With a bottle of lotion

And a sock ... but no shoe.

All alone!

Though it’s quite unintentional

All of your ladies

Have become two-dimensional.

And when you’re alone, there’s a very good chance

You’ll meet things that scare you back into your pants.

But on you will go

Though your ego is scarred

On you will go

Though it’s long ... and it’s hard.

You’ll take it all in

You’ll fill up your cup

’Cause Philos don’t abstain—

They’re just hard up.

On you will go

You will hike through the night

With just your canteen

And your trusty fleshlight

And will you succeed? Yes! You will, indeed!

Ninety-eight metrick fucktons guaranteed.

Kid, you’ll hike the Appalachian trail!

So, be your name Buxbaum or Bixby or Merman

Or Jacob Mohammed Siddhartha O’Sherman

You’re off to great sex! Today is your day!

Your maintain is waiting— Now go and get laid.