Visitation at Fort Horn

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”  –Margaret Mead

This is the only Greetings outtake I never got around to writing about for the blog, and that’s probably a good thing.

Had I written it in any year prior to this one, I might have characterized it as a period piece–a revealing glimpse into the mind of a young poet in the early 1970s, but nothing that offers resonance today.

Instead, I’m writing this in the waning days of 2025, in a country where “Visitation at Fort Horn” rings with more power and relevance than its author ever could have imagined.

Let’s take a listen.. And if you can, listen in the dark. Close your eyes. Let Bruce’s story wash over you. “Visitation at Fort Horn” is a challenging song to hold in our grasp, and it demands deep, attentive listening if we are to try.

“Visitation at Fort Horn” was written and recorded around the same time as “Lost in the Flood,” and the parallels are obvious.

Both songs feature apocalyptic imagery and intensely florid–almost to the point of cryptic–language. And both are set against the backdrop of Vietnam War-era America, key to understanding each of them.

Both songs feature powerful storms as metaphors for social unrest, and both represent the military-industrial complex as the fort.

So closely do they compare that it’s easy to see why only one could make the album. We might argue that Bruce picked the right one, but we should take some time to explore and appreciate the one that got away before deciding.

“Visitation at Fort Horn” is essentially a play. It features five characters, and each one represents a societal force. We meet our first player–The Buffalo Man–right away:

Behind the walls where heat lightning falls
On five-starred gnat-faced princes
The buffalo man shoots at tin cans
Turns and shouts, “Children, blow your bridges”
In death row halls where dust men stall
For time’s an enemy and a friend
At night, jackals crawl from the cracks in the walls
Salvation is never spoken

The stage is set. We are at Fort Horn, a symbol of 1970s America, a country at war abroad and facing  increasing resistance and uprising at home.

The five-starred, gnat-faced princes are the ruling class of the military industrial complex; the Buffalo Man is a voice of protest–anarchy even–calling for powerful uprising but ultimately undirected, unorganized, and therefore impotent. (He calls for blown bridges but is reduced to shooting tin cans.) Time is both enemy and friend: the playwright knows that while social change is inevitable, it is also glacial.

Morning sickness breaks the garrison gates
The cavalry cries for treason
The soldier strokes his pony and goes to shine the captain’s sword
In this young boy’s eyes lie reason

More backdrop scene-setting here. In four lines, Bruce establishes societal decay, resistance to the war within the ranks of the military, and the rise of a youth movement portrayed as the voice of reason.

Now It’s time to meet our main players:

But then the sergeant burst in, says
“Captain, I caught a prisoner, Captain. A prisoner, what ho?”
The Captain looks up and says, “Let her go”
“But Captain, she commands the lightships that patrol the sea around the rainbow tips
Whose bagpipes wail unbroken
She haunts the night and the dawn and the light
On her sounds and words, your cavalry’s choking”
The captain says, “Have no fear, boys, for what you hear
Because danger can’t be spoken”

The Sergeant represents the rogue elements of a corrupt state, and specifically its enforcement arm: the riot police, officers who operate outside of protocol. (If the song was set in 2025, we would add ICE agents as well.)

The Captain represents contemptuous authority and institutional cruelty. He commands from the safety of his desk and is unable or unwilling to to grok the inevitably irresistible force of resistance. He cares only for protecting his power and believes it is self-reinforcing.

The Prisoner is the embodiment of justice. civic integrity, and American spirit–currently restrained by the brute force of The Sergeant, The Captain, and the unescapable Fort they command.

Once we understand who our players are, the story reveals itself: The Sergeant has captured The Prisoner with his brutality but doesn’t know what to with her. The Captain dismisses The Prisoner with disdain: Let her go. Danger can’t be spoken. Or put another way, words are just words. The state has institutional authority, legal weaponry, and and brute strength on their side. They have nothing to fear.

But we have one more character to introduce now.

The war wind crackles and I hear the rustle of shackles
From the stockade door bursts Merlin
His eyes red and swollen like they’ve been pushed into the sun
His robe’s aflame and burning
He jumps a horse, tries to get away, but gets caught in his irons
Tangled in his irons, and he falls to the ground, his neck was broken
His spirit rises high into the western sky
The magician lies an empty token

Merlin is the martyr: the activist jailed or canceled, the whistleblower whose career is destroyed, the university or media outlets sued or starved for refusing to bend a knee. Bruce casts Merlin as a magician, because what other explanation is there for indomitability without any weapon, power, or obvious advantage?

At first it seems like Merlin is easily vanquished, but that’s only his physical form. His essence rises high into the western sky, and here we arrive at Bruce’s central thesis: you can shoot the messenger, but you can’t shoot the message. The message is the magic; the magicians are merely the vessels.

You can’t contain magic, and if you try to, you’ll only end up releasing and spreading it. The Captain understands this:

The sergeant walks over and kicks his body and says
“Captain, he’s dead, I think he’s dead, what should we do with him?”
The captain says, “Hang him.
For those live moments on this earth are well spent
And I can see his body sure well bent
It’s his magic that must be broken”

Merlin is dead, but his magic is unbroken and threatens to empower The Prisoner with renewed and reinforced will to resist:

And now night cradles low
The penniless weed plays raw filth in the captain’s corner
With anvils spread wide, the captain glides
Each blow to scare her, not hurt her
She spits with truth at the captain’s boots
But he holds his rage suspended

He rages and threatens, but both Captain and Prisoner know that his true power lies in intimidation. Our governmental institutions, constitution, and legal powers protect The Prisoner (or at least they did fifty years ago), and The Captain’s bluster only serves to stir the rising storm.

The sergeant comes stinking of soldiers’ gin
And cries, “Captain, the storm, she blows unending”
Oh, and the lightning cracked
And the sky was hacked by dagger rain, it was torn
And the yard was charged into a raging sea
And the captain ran crazily
For the first time in his life, in the captain’s heart, fear was born

The Storm, of course, represents the cultural shift toward societal change, now deafening in volume and intensity. Mass resistance has always been and still is the only force that despots fear, and our Captain is now terrified.

Bruce’s final lines drive it home:

So the captain storms out on the stoop
Panic strikes, sees Merlin’s hung body stretched by the neck
Silhouetted on his door
The sergeant screams, “Captain, look high, look to the sky
Some whirling, swirling emission”
The captain falls to his knees, crying silent pleas
Because he knows, he knows
And he thinks to himself,
“A magician”

Merlin is dead, but his magic has been unleashed. Bruce doesn’t bother offering resolution, because we don’t need it. (Also, the song is already almost eight minutes long.)

We know what happens from here. We know what always happens when enough people are willing to sacrifice their employment, their financial stability, and even their freedom in the name of justice, fairness, equity, and compassion.

“Visitation at Fort Horn” offers the listener hope, courage, confidence, and faith in the face of what looks and feels like a system hardwired for fealty and cruelty. It was written at a time when American legal institutions still served as armor and shield for those who adhered to its principles.

Today, our armor is being stripped from us piece by piece, and our shields are patched and perforated.

We are each The Prisoner, vulnerable and asking ourself: Dare we be Merlin?

The Captain and his Sergeants are doing their best to dissuade us from even considering it.

Visitation at Fort Horn
Recorded: June 27, 1972
Never released
First performed: February 1972
Last performed: February 1972

(c) November 16, 2025