Reprise

Crazy Horse Lost in the Backrooms: Exploration #3, Derelict

Crazy Horse Lost in the Backrooms: Exploration #3, Derelict

Originally Published 26 July 2023

for Sinead*

The great greed-temple boat 

 buzzes and burrs belly-deep, 

   rattles to rafter and buttress,

     to gloom-veiled, glass-walled, 

       green-felted Mammon-tables 

         gathered and chair-crowned 

           in their nave. 

Bare brown feet pad locked halls, 

         cold metal floors

     washed nautical white

                  and          

               seamed

with wise wayfinder lines,

    red 

          yellow 

                    green

                              blue, 

dwindling ahead into the dark,

into the precursor black abaft. 

Horse knows the nowhere they go, 

     the nothing on or below 

        the calm, glimmering waves

            past peering black portholes;

                            down deep 

          where leviathan hearts ought beat

           slow lifetimes between sounding,

                              he feels 

        the aching emptiness of life slumped

                 like hillocks to the horizon

           on gloaming,snow-drifted plains,

He wanders back `round again this circle he’s in,

feels moon tide-pulling his sea-salted blood

when,

on a turn through his lost courses,

he passes a porthole,

feels the novel salt breeze 

through the newly glass-gone,

hears water lapping at the ship’s ribs,

then

two brogue voices -

                        one gruff,

one gloss -

singing over the moon-gilt waves;

Horse doesn’t know them, but

stops                            listens

                   then

                                       goes on,

glad they’re singing each other home.

*If you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide or experiencing a mental health or substance use crisis, 988 provides 24/7 connection to confidential support. There is hope. You are not alone. Just call or text 988 or chat 988lifeline.org, 988 connects you with a trained crisis counselor who can help.