Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
Paula Swanson Dec 2010
Our snowmen, they're not made of white,
they're tumbleweeds, rolled up tight.
No top hat upon his head,
a cowboy hat sits there instead.
His face and buttons, tree ornaments,
boots and lariat, his accoutrements.

Saguaro cacti with lights wrapped round,
illuminate the landscaped grounds.
Old horse drawn wagons get the festive touch.
With lighted garlands, packages and such.
Porch rails glow with colored lights,
Christmas trees in windows, warm the nights.

Our little town gets all decked out.
Then we gather along the old parade route.
Folks on horseback with ribbons and bells.
The horses know the parade route well.
Marching school bands play Christmas songs,
trucks and tractors carry carolers along.

Floats abound from businesses and groups.
Braving the cold, the Christmas Cowboy Troops.
We all stand up to clap and cheer,
as Santa, as usual, brings up the rear.
Waving his red cowboy hat, in a horse drawn sleigh,
Welcoming Christmas, the Wickenburg way.
Happy Holidays to all.  Wishing you the best this Season has to offer.
Ken Pepiton Nov 2023
That river runs most of the year, through
Wickenburg, Arizona,
phonic resonance, wiccan, twisted wick
dipped in golden oil to write the vision,
seen from the copper kettle coffee shop
on the banks of the shallow Hasayampa
I formed a story from a glimpse, an instance
made plain for me, I see, seeming
to think we know I mean you see, we know.

We know the way oaths work, we comprehend
open source, may we all say we know and know,
nothing said to have been done by truth,
as all things worked together,
is intentionally keeping
our interpretations of story smeared history,
from just yesterday, as true, first impression

as ever began,
I wrote. And I write, and as I write, I think,
I pray, instants passed in the process give
momentary pause
ele-ment-al
all ment ends are mental acts done thought,
deed done, as when in his heart a man does,
be it he or she, wombed or un, mirror neurons

do not discern thought and deed, indeed,
we all have been beguiled, but never forever.

We die to know, but we then do, as far as you
may know, until we go incommunicado.
The feeling of being a boy in Arizona, before the freeways, life was slower, not better, just less aware of the essential worth of certain instants of insight.
Ken Pepiton Mar 18
Mystic musterion
intricacy, weaver's lessons,
ever more tedious and finer

wearing away old layers of lies,
a little here,
a little there,
all the room
     in the world
            to spread

the whole cloth  
of single strands,
the whole duty
of the master weaver,
the whole work
of one's seasons tediums
time's
turns
into next seasons phases preparing,
toilsome and wearisome as it must be,

but
by the very nature
of naked man, made

long common quotidean
threading of things in patterns,
most time consuming practical use
of time,

spinning and spinning and spinning,
already cut and rhetted and carded
and combed
to full fluffy flaxen strands,
twisting and twisting and twisting
in time,

to the first story grandfathers remember,

the memory
of parcel twine, how handy
that stuff was, and baling wire, howdy
do, that was useful material,
always have some,
on a journey…

You maybe,
never baled hay,
as an old whole ghost's muser,
in the spirits gossamerisms
of truth's coverings
in fine twined linen, delicately

tugged flaxen thread divinely

hooked and looped fibers
practically perfect
for making strings

--- but making things, and watching things
being made, art performance,
at 4x quick
post 2025 worth of ra' attention
prepaid experience imaginable once
entertaining demonstrations costing days,
days, and days, of focused aimed know how,

and -- awareness,
wearing consciously, how
which tools uses must have once been practiced,
grooved habitual routes to the effectual prayer,
points and edges honed to tedious-most tasks,
using utmost point
to point
at prepositioning

synchronized realization,
at just right, feel,
agree,
time immemorial, feel, it snaps
in place,

-- when after ever before,
or just whenever, once

the peace maker faces the hero,
the bullslayer up against
the ox maker all ready
wearing gnoshit grins

winners woof, crosses
losers tight tuned warp…

and we are back
at that rocking chair,
pushing the piston, pulling a vacuum,

consequently lifting exhaust valves,
in right order, letting loose lost time…

free
for wondering what ifery in,
while redeeming the worth
of the rocker./ already
gone silent, mere mind
reading fragments
from weavers
aloud
to the spinners
great notion
in season,
fashion has all
in denim now, eh

weary mind needs a peasant's
experience, bone deep,
to imagine weary

we have lost many peasantries,
few weavers remain, willing
to sit and rock, singing
some old radio tunes

where once were word weavers,
earnestly adapted
to the art
of making effort effects
do be lieve just so is so sometimes, perfect
and close enough,
both
become mechanized
in order
to relate,
the musterionic constancy
of posed
to be ability,

see, selfie, ah, we,
we see us all
from Saturn, daily noticed
in my house, we look
from as far away as possible

and figure the odds
of your taking ownership,
wordlessly, infancy, illiterate
in times readiness,

I know this idea, yes, whole

alike and not alike, heads tails edges,

terms, borders between all and nothing at all

in other words,
same inside, same outside,
as above, so below, is what trees show known,
however, whenever fructification buds show
now
spring time
of year living duties did and do depend,
on when which branches bloom, somebody alive
does know how food gets
to the grocery store…
somebody alive
now, does all the planting and reaping and peeling
and cooking and putting

before us
to chew and swallow and know,
if you choke, you die, so
chew slow, you live

this way… not right away, so
zehr slooow
mindwerks inner wille zur machen
instant in season out of season,
so global are we now,
as those

with plenty idle time redeemed reading

most abstract ideas dementia imagined makes

we have machinists now, threaders and tighteners,

toters and totalers accounting
for cost
in misery,
due
to you doing nothing but
read my minds wonderings
this whole while,
lazy rocking while reading

as we all spin,
at a rate a little faster
than a thousand miles in an hour,

and, if we were
to believe, deep kid oath level,
sworn, aliegiance
to something publicly relational
by witnesses confirmed, verb act done
--
believed
Christmas
celebrated the peace,
the message makes when taken
in peace,
and given to us as users of air,
as planet sharing neighbors
with inalienable rights
to reason
with holy business,
to earnestly contend

for the faith
of a mustard seed, ready
to be messed
with genetically so far past Darwin's

bulldog's levered pivoting power slamming
letters
in inks sublimated
into silken ribbons,

keyed at upto a hundred wpm,
read now at five words per minute,

-- a hundred monkeys, and never a stuck jam
of keys struck all
at once, as any non patiently trained typist
most assuredly
did know,
so common,
while imagining companions,
such minds do sort
on ****** nationalized ontologies.

Just my type, scary as Virginia Wolf,
but after Xanax, mellow momma.

How comes and knocks why
through a loop
where there is a hook
just when needed a stitch
in time, hero action micro deed,
taken, made redone
done, sew on…

with miserly smiles,
promising God is watching,

be good, easy, believe,
God hates lazy *******,
but, Truth, as preserved
to be conserved, duty wise, mine, chosen,

I took the long way
around the mountain,
meandering in flux
as feels right
downhill,

I followed a stream I

think I imagined drinking from once,

in Holbrook, Arizona.
No, Wickenburg, right.
Famous as the river Lethos, but
Hasayampa water make you
only tell lies,
therefore
effectually eventual splitting spirit's true
from spirit's false, mere made up test ifs,

when you eat fish,
spit the bones, with watermelon, spit seeds…

during late stage maturity among mortals…

ways have been made knowable,
how sacred arts
present worth
with lavishes so thin,
takes flies eyes to see lines
divine intuited beauty knowable, except,

the fundamental
what we are
has
being as
a story told us, all,

during our subjection
to information compression,
allowing multifunction parallel processing
in no time.

----------- 2025 from go, new time, new reason, peace
made and fixed held
through hell
and back
in time
where no peace was, my
mind sees that peasant's horse,
too noble a steed, stranded
for any but the best
of hearts, lost

Bucephalus, old spirit,
pull the plow, pull the cannon,
come pull all us attention payers
to vivid big screen attention paying all
our wages,

in the current republic cave of
Socratic Platonic bemusement

- those initiates listening knew,
- those agents serving muses telling
- these listening invitees, now, turn and burn
- threaten those given God's vengeance,

as life long spirit

thirsty for knowing why after all.

After living while better folks didn't.

After inspecting each stone
in my tower,
as I breathe
and live behaving
alchemically as if imagined just so
happy with life and liberty and tools
being actively haps pursuers as we may,

we logical anomalies allowed reasoning,
teleological whying trials all some how

passed and representative as normal,
squared away, compassing gamma,

wise, back
to Enheduanna, grand whole

so told, perfect,
to the letter, each time,
so told, perfect, without fail,
to the letting

go, get on,

tell it
like it is

true, if money can fix it, it's not God's job.


may recall, the horse struggling in concertina barbs
between trenches somewhere in Alsace or Lorraine,

the war to end all wars… was over before
the author's father died… this idea, the authority

allowing living words… viral letters letting sense
trickle down, down
to the bottom,

first undeniable truth any willing warrior believes,

will we define our terms,
assuming usage our right, our ritual considerations,

we work day to day, quotidian tedium to some,
social fashioning consciousnesses to others.

Information, once published instantly,
as when all are made knowers, once,

truly tested, bested and bettered, after
ever
being cognizant of the tech teachers use,

naturally, misuse and abuse are exactly evil,

be therefore as ware, made
to handle problems
in chthonic holes

according to the relative coexistance
of us as users of these exact same words
to form these exact same

cogitations, at one and the same
instance, as we words once writ remain

the same idea we were once you knew

the class of magi, those advisors of bullish

summer gangs of boys, sent off seeking wives,

seek a prudent wife,
seek an Enheduanna, or a Jael, be humbled

as she possesses your very soul, and leaves
your spirit cheering, you know

we can spin all day long, we can even, look,
imagine,
a rocking chair, see, keep on, hush,

little baby, don't you cry,
listen to the grandmas laughing,

way up yonder after history you'll never
pay up then and there, after all's said

all's just said,
so, that's all.
What I do to make joy believably survivable... is catch hold of lost time.

— The End —