Reprise

Crazy Horse Lost in the Backrooms: Arrival

Crazy Horse Lost in the Backrooms: Arrival

Original Publication Date: 28 June 2023

Crazy Horse roams terrain vague,
lost liminal in the seams between 

here 
                    and

                                       there,


the yellow-steeped Backrooms, and

                    there,

gloam-grinned strip storefronts, emptied,

                    and there,

a stone-silent Naukograd’s weed-split lanes,

                    and -

further East - crumbling, concrete-crowned Hashima,
licked by salted, whispering waves.
 

In a mall in Peoria, 
a bucket of turned pretzel cinnamon
sits next to a dark carousel, 
the wicked come its way and gone long since,
the way of all our ennui.

Inside him, there is non-space 

where once chugged 

and ground 
                   
                   and turned through its rusty ways,

the gears of heart’s industry

            grown cold, 

                  but resolving to life again.