Black Thread (Tour Rut)

For 11 years of my youth I spent summers touring as a member of The Cavaliers Drum & Bugle Corps (first in the Cadet Corps, then in the 'A' Corps).  This poem was written in my last, "age out" year with the corps.  While outwardly it may seem depressing, I have always found that writing something sombre takes those feelings away from me and makes me feel better.  May it do the same for any who read it.  My favorite words in the poem are "-We belong-".

---

Here on a curb
     (some truck stop in Missouri)
   Sound of Drums
            Horns
     Diesel Engines

Waiting for parts to fix
            Some piece of
            Some bus
That we reluctantly call
                    Home

Practice is sincere, yet
           All minds long
  To return to the road, to
               Motion
   Somewhere, maybe hundreds
     Of miles away
               We don't care
       Just not here:
              Where the loneliness
         Of truck drivers
              Does not diminish with
   Their numbers but multiplies
        With every empty face
                       Sucking down
                               Coffee

It is now, my summer
       Wails
    For a better place
     To be spent

It is now, I can only
       Dream
    Of afternoons at
      Oak Street Beach
         A family
  So far our of reach

   One can't help
       But wonder why?
       And yet it seems
       -We belong- nowhere
                     Else...

...And coming back
        To a familiar
   School (no one knows what houses
             are anymore)
          It could be six states
                   From home
           For I have forgotten

   It all seems blurred
      Into one barely cohesive
      Line: black thread,
      Tied in a loop,
      Removing beginnings
      And ends to stumble
      Over

   Finding a spot near the wall
          I pass
A dollar dropped on the floor
      Too lazy to
      Pick it up; or maybe
          Its promise is of no
             Value to me
                 Anymore

      So many promises
                   All found fake
        It's difficult to see
                Where home is because
             You cannot break
                Black thread,,,

(c) 1987 Norman Dziedzic Jr.