Oh Gelderland,
in night I wait for you,
long before the tugging slay
of slate-smudged days.
Are you real or just a dream?
Oh Gelderland,
lying down with evening’s hearth
watching flame and twisting sprites,
hearing coals cracked wide
against my spite.
Tell me again
the things I wish I knew -
before my open eyes forget,
before my loping heart regrets
Oh Gelderland.
Let old winds blow,
like soul of souls on ribbon air
from you oh Gelderland -
come soon your mystery,
come soon.

I killed Santa
and then I broke
your heart.
I couldn’t lie.
I thought you knew.
This was the day
he died.
I told you,
he was a dream
to gently wake -
I whispered this
was part
of growing
up.
Yet still
the tears rolled
and you sobbed
and you cried again,
not foolish at all -
forever like,
a child.

Wisened smirks in tan and spur
on drifting plains where gauchos ride
with measured words of old-world burr
in parchment air the cow-punch calls
to stars and satellites .
Weather shirks and tin men blur,
on nowhere trains in race to find
the long gone herd of ways that were,
descent no more than new-born’s fall
on drifting plains the gauchos ride.
Please, don’t switch your T.V on
tonight.

I’ve seen her too.
Shiny, glassy even.
Midnight holding silver
Whistle to her lips
And the air abounds
With auspices of birds
Glowing like atom’s breath -
Imagined but alive.