to write (v.)

Source: Slaughterhouse-Five or The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-dance with Death by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. 

 

Method: An erasure culled out from Chapter 5, page 101.


Note: 

First published in #theslideshow, Five 2 One Magazine, February 2017.

prayer (n.)

Source: Slaughterhouse-Five or The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-dance with Death by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. 

 

Method: An erasure culled out from Chapter 5, page 84.


Note: 

First published in the Spring 2017 issue of After the Pause.

Breathing Room

Source: Slaughterhouse-Five or The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-dance with Death by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. 

 

Method: An erasure culled out from Chapter 5, page 85.




 

In Theory

Source: Slaughterhouse-Five or The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-dance with Death by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. 

Method: An erasure culled out from Chapter 2, page 25. 

pain (n.)

Source: Slaughterhouse-Five or The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-dance with Death by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. 

Method: An erasure culled out from Chapter 5, page 89. 

Rolling Stone

Think about it for a while.

The effects of history

makes a three-sided hole

where the money is. Living

in useful terror [for hours rather

than centuries], look into

a mirror frequently. Stare

at pretty things, the bucolic void,

and have a wet dream

as eternity fails to go by.

And then it is time to go.

Always time to go.

Source: Slaughterhouse-Five or The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-dance with Death by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. 

Method: This is a remixed poem composed from select lines and phrases from those pages that are multiples of ten (10-170). 

How To Make Art

Construct a life made
from things glued to
a lollipop stick; a thing without
precedent, a mass of nothing
with a twist. 

But that's not enough anymore.
No art is possible without being
alive, hurt, and undignified.

Source: A cento composed from select lines and phrases from Slaughterhouse-Five or The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-dance with Death, by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. 


Note: First published in issue 3 of The Black Napkin.  

upcycle (v.)

Source: Slaughterhouse-Five or The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-dance with Death by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. 

Method: An erasure culled out from Chapter 4, pages 60-61. 


Note: 

First published in issue forty-four of Otoliths.

Monoku

springtime trees leafing out green and coffin-shaped 

Source: Slaughterhouse-Five or The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-dance with Death by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. 

Method: An erasure culled out from Chapter 10, page 177. 


Note: First published in issue 6 of 'Failed Haiku,' June 2016.

Earthling Question?!

There is no why.

It would be lovely to sleep.

And, outside, a year

would go by. 

 
Source: Slaughterhouse-Five or The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-dance with Death by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. 

Method: An erasure culled out from Chapter 4, page 63. 



Note: 

First published in the Spring 2017 issue of After the Pause.

How to Survive

Source: Slaughterhouse-Five or The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-dance with Death by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. 

Method: An erasure culled out from Chapter 5, page 83. 



Note: First published in issue 3 of The Black Napkin. 

An Apology

You're so quiet;

sitting on the floor,

thinking through glass eyes.

Blind. Crashing. Twinkling.

Your peculiar smile dropped away,

a method for keeping horrible pains

and silence inside paper bags. 


Source: Slaughterhouse-Five or The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-dance with Death by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. 

Method: This is a remixed poem composed only from column inches (I measured one inch of text and used only those words that formed a part of the column on that particular page) from chapter 3 of the novel. The chapter number was determined by chance that involved picking a chit from a bowl.  

Note: First published in The Gambler Mag, May 2016. 

Free Will

Source: Slaughterhouse-Five or The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-dance with Death by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. 

Method: An erasure culled out from Chapter 4, page 70. 

Note: First published in The Gambler Mag, May 2016 

The Idea of Being Machines

Nobody talked.

There was nothing appropriate to say.

It represented a flaw in the design –

treacherous, unstable, eager;

on the edge of a desert.

Clocks wound.

Everything pretty much all right.  

Source: Slaughterhouse-Five or The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-dance with Death by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

Method: This is a remixed poem composed from chapters 7 & 8 of the novel.

Luminous Spaghetti

You couldn’t begin

to understand darkness

in total, full of bullet-holes,

beautiful and surprising and deep.

Separated by stars,

one mile straight down, 

amessagewithnobeginningnomiddlenoend.     

Source: Slaughterhouse-Five or The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-dance with Death by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

Method: This is a remixed poem composed only from the first three pages of chapter 5 of the novel. The title is taken from the Tralfamadorian view of the heavens appearing like "rarefied, luminous spaghetti."

Note: First published in issue 104 of Right Hand Pointing. 

Isn't life wonderful?

To the point. An adventure

explained. Not human anymore.

Involuntary clowns of the earth. 
Power and anger and death 
as peep shows in the back.  

Mildly curious as to 
what could have been, 
and the end is not yet.

Source: Slaughterhouse-Five or The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-dance with Death by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

Method: This is a remixed poem composed from chapter 9 of the novel, after rolling a six-sided dice twice on each page, and choosing only the corresponding sentences/lines to form my word bank. The chapter number was determined by chance that involved picking a chit from a bowl. 

Gutless Wonder

People are discouraged

from being characters,

or snakes, or a rat;

some kind of gutless

wonder that keeps

bodyandsoul together.

Why not get it over with now?

Infect the whole world. 

We're all afraid of something –

I should know, but I don't. 

Sour, sourer still, unbearably sour.

Source: Slaughterhouse-Five or The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-dance with Death by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

Method: This is a remixed poem composed from select lines and phrases from chapter 8 of the novel. The chapter number was determined by chance that involved picking a chit from a bowl. 

Parallel Universe

Source: Slaughterhouse-Five or The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-dance with Death by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. 

Method: An erasure culled out from Chapter 2, page 22.

overjoyed (adj.)

Every day, there is

much interest in improvements.

The general idea is

I’m not overjoyed.



Source: Slaughterhouse-Five or The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-dance with Death by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. 

Method: An erasure culled out from Chapter 10, page 173.


Note: First published in issue 104 of Right Hand Pointing. 

Crosses on a Siding

I was somewhere

in there making room

for infinity;

nothing at all from

here to there.

Source: Slaughterhouse-Five or The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-dance with Death by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. 

Method: This is a remixed poem composed only from column inches (I measured one inch of text and used only those words that formed a part of the column on that particular page) from chapter 3 of the novel. The chapter number was determined by chance that involved picking a chit from a bowl.