As The Poem Exists Now, Middle

Our big rehearsal is Saturday and we'll try to complete choreography that day. So I've reached a workable version of the poem, one that i think is alright and will work well in juxtaposition to the movement.

My biggest concerns were getting too caught up with the narrative, so i have decided to put a short version of the story in the program. I know everyone won't read it, but I think it takes the pressure off of the making the poem coherent as a story, poetic, and movable. As the poem exists now- (note the title change and the shift in emphasis in the middle.

Love and War Return Home, Hand in Hand

I know that the traveler must dissolve nostalgic threads
of personal history and go ahead with no baggage,
no determined route; that the so-called hero
is one who has mastered her own dissolution;
that she’s not a conqueror but a surrenderer, . . .
-Gretel Ehrlich, a match to the heart

I. Rich Square, North Carolina Juche 47 (1958)

He leans only his head through the door jamb.
Boy, don’t even think about school today.
There’s tobacco to be topped,
and the south field needs worming.
Announcements often worked
as Daddy’s version of Good Morning.

That afternoon in the fields,
he caught me staring at beyond.
Don’t Ever Leave
came out Keep worming son.
Nothing’s over there you can’t find here,
except women, trouble, and strife.

Later, I was taking the hornworms
to feed the turkeys when I found him half in,
half out of the barn. It took death
to make him indecisive, but at that moment
I knew I was done with eighth grade.

Then, I figured Rich Square
for the loneliest place in the world,
so I aimed to join the Army
and find something to do
and some folks to do it with.
There’s not much to a decision though
when you look around and all you see
is alone and alone and alone.

II. DMZ, South Korea Juche 54 (1965)

Every time I went to sleep,
all I dreamt about was me
getting one of those boys killed.
One night, I led them a step too far
and McFrances, with the sick daddy,
set off a landmine. The next night,
my mind wandered on watch
and it was an enemy’s knife
at Parham’s throat. While I was writing
his dream mother, explaining everything
I’d done to make her boy dead,
the CO shook me awake. Good morning
merry sunshine. Just heard ya’ll
are next off to Vietnam.

What I thought I was walking to
I can’t say, but just so you know,
the line you step over
to get to the other side
isn’t a real line at all.
You would think they might make it one
so you could stop
and consider what crossing it means.

III. Pyongyang, North Korea Juche 69 (1980)

Imagine my surprise to find I wasn’t alone.
Those three were a comfort to me at first.
We were all just boys,
and it was like a sleepaway camp
and when the fun was over,
our daddies would come gather us home.

One of us would distract the minder
while the others snuck out,
Abshier made a pretty fair version
of macaroni and cheese, and when
the North Koreans made a movie,
we got to play the evil Americans.

But eventually, we were four men
against a general, a country, and a whole philosophy.
By the time a bodyguard whispered
Americans have landed on the moon,
none of us believed it,
thought they must want us to imagine
a country that could send a man
to a place so far,
a land so desolate,
but wouldn’t come to reclaim us.

Alone and alone and alone and then,
Hitomi, kidnapped to teach Japanese
to spies. She is your project they said.
You must teach her Korean
just as we taught you.
You will do it for the Dear Leader,
who takes care of you,
who takes care of us all.
And I started to, I tried,
but one night she pulled me close
and said We must remind each other
of where we are from. Together,
we can remember.
So each night in Japanese I whispered
Oyasuminasai. Goodnight, my love
she would croon in return.

IV.Camp Zama Penitentiary, Japan Juche 93 (2004)

Thirty days is a long time for something
a boy did forty years ago. And they are right.
If they let me go, it’s only more
of you boys will try to leave. But son,
how you made it four days in the desert
carrying nothing is beyond me.

I won’t speak for you, but this is where I was always walking.
I didn’t quit a war. I gave myself over,
chose in a backwards way, and tomorrow,
when I am freed, I will not only put my back
to the Army, to America,
but I will also walk directly to Hitomi.
If she will have me, I will tell her Good morning.
Ohayoogozaimasu I believe she will tell me
and we will turn to leave together,
departing towards a home,
surrendered, hand in hand.

I've also written a Googlism poem about the idea of "middle" for the middle part of the program. (Yes, there is a beginning and end too.) It is below.

Middle; A Googlism Poem

I am one of the middle-hearted.
Middle of Bagdhad, middle of the night.
Middle is the subject through which the end influences the beginning.
Middle is on the left.
Middle is what I have become.