RNDSP 3: Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut (1969)

So it goes
The bombs and battles
One and a half million people die
There is nothing special in telling about killing
It only makes truer how fact and fiction blend seamlessly

And then life began
Everything is beautiful and nothing hurts

A war took me out of my comfort zone
I was in Schlachthof-fünf, a slaughterhouse
In the enemy’s land, as a prisoner; and my people
They were bombing our enemy
I might have died with the enemies
All bad things, though, did come to an end

How nice — to feel nothing,
And still get full credit for being alive!

I take the folks’ saying, to make love not war, to heart
And a family, a wife, a dozen of kids, an insurance policy and a TV
It is just the way of living for billions of men
All this happens, more or less
And it is far better than our stupidity to wage wars

And no one knows
Who might get lucky in life, living life more than others

But I’m unstuck in time
When the aliens take me to their home in Tralfamadore
I might die and I might live and I’m no hero
Their four-dimension existence only confuses
Even more, when they say free will is an illusion

Who cares about bombing in unknown cities far away?
Optometry sounds more real than reality.

*Random Novels Distilled into Short Poems (RNDSP)
is a collection of bloody verses extracted from some favourite novels.
The series includes:

RNDSP 1: Post Office, Charles Bukowski (1971)
RNDSP 2: Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh (1993)
RNDSP 3: Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut (1969)
RNDSP 4: Fear of Flying, Erica Jong (1973)
RNDSP 5: Imphal Amasoong Magi Ising Noongsitki Fibham, Loitongbam Pacha Meitei (Imphal and Its Environs, 1972)


Check the entire RNDSP series