Of Wind and Water

When you say you have lost that direction,
Sit out in the breeze.

What is captured in a snapshot,
Can never be lost.

If you hunger for the past,
Look into the distance.

Upon return, you will be greeted in wisdom’s essence.
With your clothing left in another room.

The external leaves its paints by the water
And reflects through the prayer body.

© 1986 Sonja J. Phinney

Devil in a Bottle

These words are powerful swords in my spleen.
Did it make you feel important in a relative sense
As the surreal shot rang out and penetrated?

Stranger’s eyes follow my bloody dance through a patch of grass.
Dreams stain my flesh and I’m walking in this
Flying suit, unable to lift my feet out.
Wounded with heart hanging out
Becoming petrified.



© 23-Apr-2012 Sonja J. Johnston

Lark in the Mystery

Transcend the boundaries
And you’ll split the lark.
All the skins that you’ve shed
And times that have slowed you
With a film over your eyes.
Each time, peeled sharply.
Continue.

Flood waters gush and
There is this forever feeling
Like this will say like a moment of
Manic Ego driven superior ability.

In the next moment, we are all gasping
For the colors again.
Deep fish.

Deep water an yet
My ankles walk the shallows
With a dog whistle,
Inside, whales.
Sword from Stone
Wet the reed where
Music has played.

Gaining and losing the
Sight of touch.


© 23-May-2012 Sonja J. Johnston

Clave Snap

In the morning,

I sneeze out the ashes

of my left over dream.



Enriched by the internal river bed made.

The unknown, familiars communicate.

I am brave enough to ask, but also foolish enough.

Leaving traces everywhere like bread crumbs

To be snatched up by hungry scavengers.

Seemingly innocent mysteries

Seemingly innocent crimes.

Shape around the morning clap of Claves.

Snapping behind my lashes.



© 02-May-2012 Sonja J. Johnston

Mana Driven

Play me your song so that I may hear.

so when the time arrives I’ll have no fear.

Show me the moment I can place in view.

Give to me the smell

That reminds me of you.



Embolden upon the silver charm

Your powerful audacity.

With virtue it hums inside me regardless.



While still subject to gravity

Throw a little breeze upon my neck

and bring me to that place for just a moment

Let it linger upon my tongue.



Walking into the bright lights

How the stage sets

The image broadcasting to

All eternity.



In this moment, I am ungrounded

Drawn electrically.

Silhouettes directly born

Scream down

Agelessly reaching the spires of my intentions.



It’s always later,

But it’s never over

Sending out this song

So all will remember

All will hear.



So when I leave,

All will hear

Soul weaver singing

Through.





© 20-Mar-2012 Sonja J. Johnston

Whose Shoes

Better watch out cuz I’m in your shoes today.
I can see the rocks and the tumbling waves.
There’s some sand in my shoes,
But I can not stay.

Into a strangers belongings
I am here and I’m there;
A drifting soul to spare.

Pairing off in hologram force.
I’m on the porch
As you come down the mountain
Or drive by the post
And you’re writing a letter
While I’m in your head.

Cuz I’m in your shoes
Streaking across the mountain tops;
Catching the sound of waves on rocks
Looking with passion out of your eyes.

Sipped from the lip
Whose shoes? Whose shoes?

Shall I slip into today?

© 03-Jul-07 Sonja J. Phinney

Experiencing the Other Side

Let me take you on this journey
to where beautiful flowers grow to be six feet high
and ring like wind chimes.
Their smell can make you drift off like a child into the atmosphere.

We will wander mountains full of giant gemstones
and return to marble walkways surrounded by alabaster.
With just a thought, your mind can turn a masterpiece.
It is needless to use ones hands here.

Your pet dog from childhood greats you
making eye contact filling you in on how much she always loved
you as and wags her tail in confirmation that you can understand her.
She always loved going on a good journey with you.

Open your mind to the possibility
Open the invisible doorway, unlocking, not only your dreams,
but your realities.

© 10/10/08 Sonja J. Johnston

The Fourth of Yesterday

From the bleachers our friends could see us walking the wires;

Switching lines of finer foreign design.



Tempting new destinations

Sweet stepping, victory slumming to

A settled town with new found work.



What a shake in the line.

That pushed apart our souls

Into a perilous pole dance?

Was it just a false offering?



Other wire walkers found our shadows

And wondered how anyone could have

Prepared for such a fall?



We were flocked in white feathers

and beyond this point,

we were unsure of where anything was

Coming and going from.



Only that the image was covered

By thick wood and a hungry

Noise was flickering about.



Our shakes in the shadows,

were Bound.



As far as the length of an eye

The time bird flew off into sky

And tiny threads arrived with the

Sunrise.



I looked down.

We still had the ground,

A parable.



The bleachers rumbled

With shouts

Resounding and familiar.





© 04-Sep-2011-Sonja J Johnston

Superior Motion

I’ve been looking for something
That’s hidden
Between the dew
And the leaf.
A combined reflection
Of baby’s two feet.

5 AM dance
The stick I call
Rattle in entrance
And run strong
Strong and solitary
Solitary in the sun.
Time to grow new wings.

A combined reflection
Solo run
5 AM
Hidden between
Baby’s two feet
Branch chewed
Rattle in entrance
Follow heartbeats.
Time to grow
Two feet fall
Growing wings
Between the dew
And the leaf
Making a superior run.

Would you call that child
From that 5 AM dance.
Stunned inside.
Chew the marrow
And rattle
Those new wings
Kick back the can
And find the flyway.

© 1989 Sonja J. Phinney

Hot Creep

Another decomposing train passes;
You can detail the connections to the bone.
I work with this stone cold feeling
Next to a stove top pilot,
dulled blue and overgrown.

We stand in this correctional downpour.
Heat lightening radiates.
You look like a hot creep all dripping like that
Lifting as the evening indicates.

I am slicked in your old coat
hand blown with enthusiasm
brought back to life from a memory
re-found in the pocket,
conceived by light.

Ribbits let loose on the rocks
Telepathic currents in a small islet.
A breath and then another,
sweet radiance
Tried to unwrap it, but couldn't.

The match scratch echoes in the halls
of restless beginnings
and the pilot light rages
as beacons burn.

© 19-Jan-2010 Sonja J. Johnston

Sugar it Up (lyrics)

Sugar-up the amplifier

Sweeten up the ropes

Tornado down the elevator

Show me your hopes.



A scramble on the subway

A ringing silenced dead

Liven up the balcony

Before we go to bed.



Blasted by that preacher rock

Try not to talk too loud

Overload the candy store

Get tipped by the crowd.



Have you gotten your alphabet

Souped up in this mess?

Alley oop, Alley oop.

Just get it off your chest.



Make those navy seals look like girl scouts

In defiant green.

It’s best not to weigh yourself down

In these times of need.



© 07-Mar-2012 Sonja J. Johnston

Heed Way (lyrics)

I can heed a long time

Rise during a decline

Penetrate through the ethers

My body upon a string.



Plays so fine

Simple little thing.



Sweet Dame

on the main line

telling stories of the undine.

flipping their tails and

swimming eternal oceans.



Abrupt the hiccup Hesperus

Whispers so shocking between us.

found thin in the pocket.

Sweet Dame.


Gentle flame that so wonderfully haunts

breath of rose and lavender taunts

with hands that warm of bergamot.



Merchant wind power

powder blue Hibernian stare

flits about

moon torched hair.



Souled upon the imprints

Tails lip the edge of the narrow stage

All hands raise up uncontrolled

Lifted from the sleeve of the torch

Lifted from fitted sheet

Lifted to be a part of thin line

across the narrows that whisper

between.


Take heed of the headway

head up from the vine.

They are enchanting the thoughts

we need now in time.



© 12 Jan 12 Sonja J. Johnston

Riding on Heat Lightning

When love gets stuck to your soul
And you can’t shake the physical
And you are getting sick on the motion of emotion
Things that can’t be put out with Fire.

Just remember when you feel grounded
To Sunday morning ash
That you’ve escaped the flame.

I hold a reflection of you in the mirror
Honoring this closeness beyond desire,
Beyond connection.

Riding on heat lightning
Safe from the rain
Always a place to return to
Again and again.

Without nets or capturing device
It is in my eyes
When love gets stuck
Stuck to your soul.

© 06-Jul-07 Sonja J. Phinney

Factory Work

Calloused puppets of trade
with me in the factory
have been victimized and
I can hear their harrowing clicks
and cries.

Stumbling in proportion to dogs fighting,
attacking.

Work begins at six AM.
Thunder fills the city this morning.

A washing of the disabled.
Ambling like a turbine
only a bit off sync.

Wings are bitten at the shoulders.
Feet tip to the uncontrollable
sequences of reflection.

© 1984 Sonja J. Phinney

Ever Since I was Born

I can tell you the path that is hidden,
But can not touch it's ground
Ever since I was born.

An inconsistent eye spot intricacy
Foot meadowed, tree sprouted
Hurdler in motion.

It’s been waiting
Here on the stair
For a new friend,
But there is only she
With bow and arrow.

Bug net water shoes in
A world of one that
Wants to share this love
Ever since I was born.

Giving away true light to
Hands that cannot hold the water.

They cannot hold the water.

Passing dreams by way of stream.
Tops of daisies in a mud puddle.
Heartbeats been waiting for another
Soul dance.
Watches that honey bug
Dervish dance
With lily and heron
From a moon lit swing.

© 1986 Sonja J. Phinney

White Charade

The light is hardened
in this season of white
where all is not forgiven.

You have become pale
in your generosity of letting me in.

In your waking, I am a passing stranger.

Your arrival is unprepared
and must be hemmed before
too many seams are pulled.

I can not dwell with your reason
in this season
of white.

© Dec 1993 Sonja J. Phinney

To Warren

I saw you this past weekend
and to hear your stories of my
clairvoyance was quite something to me.

I was sent a woman once, who knew you.
She had heard of me through you.
She tried to give me money in exchange
for a reading.

I could not.

The will of it is beyond my will you see.
It is a dance one steps into with eyes open.
It's is I who am also blind.

© 1988 Sonja J. Phinney

Someday

Fresh and dew eaten
All the drops of loneliness.

On the road of stone, there are
nine angels and two men
in the same.

Two men of minds unshared,
but well known.

Who will know.

Someday.

© 1983 Sonja J. Phinney

From 1983

The day rests in the palm of my hand.
Understanding the unknown and the
feelings among the living;
not wanting another rain.

© 1983 Sonja J. Phinney

Maya Knows of Flowers

New Smoke tingles the tongue.
She left too soon from flowers once in bloom.
Playing games in the dark.

Liquor laughing its ways
Calling him forth from southern winds
Playing in the meadow
till darkest arrives.

Falling last in the smoke
Below the rotting stones,
But remembering softly
of the flowers once in bloom.

© 1983 Sonja J. Phinney

Jinn of the Ethers

A bird flits about and
presents itself in full
suit and song at my side
by the window.
Every moment, speaking of the child.
The one nested with me.

The one I banished.

The bird comes in various colors and song.

Years later, the same presence of the ethers...

Jinn.

My little one who whispers
sounds of joy, spring, and mourning.

Hello and goodbye, sweet, sweet, lulla

bye.

© 1999 Sonja J. Johnston

Waiting on the Rain to Shine

My money's been laid up.
Nobody's got a hold on me.
I'm just holding on myself.

Time's been wishing for a better place
to shed my inner grace.
Placed in wait and confused in the light.

The smoothness bends slightly and
I am pulled to see this way of living
I have never known.

Living in shadow.
Waiting for the rain to shine.

- 1992 Sonja J. Phinney

Sweet Significance

Twee, twee, I'm up in the tree.
Do I really sound so small a sparrow?

The quill of my flight is as strong a
visitor as the prow of and otter humming
through the water.

Such a small sound I know I carry,
but from my belly, a jewel shines.

A small shiny thing,
mixed in with the sands.

Hunted,

Scavenged.

Twee, twee.

© Oct 1995 Sonja J. Phinney.

Held

Second arrival,
encased and slumbering.
The cargo was stopped
for this lifeless shell.

This moment,
This moment now,
Timed out over and over again.
Into the moment, a harsh berrang!

The space,
weakened.

An instant passes,
and another.

"I am afraid."

The terror speaks inside.
It is loud inside;
full, but rock still.

She made herself invisible.

© 1993 Sonja Phinney

Image 2, Face of Anguish

All too often it is heard from the depths of one who is
set on seeking the wisdom of purity,
anguished cries of mistreatment.

The photograph is evidence
It is not without it's particulars.
To know the texture of the Panther, one must answer
its cries and sleep in that bed with fear.

The attack isn't against this person,
it's out of what is brought to the territory.

These are the ways of fear and war.
When a welcome mat is beaten against a step,
it's not out of anger; it's to be free
of the dirt caught up within.

© 8-20-98 Sonja J. Phinney

Running into the Roar

The lions parade as I
run into the roar.
You stand at the shore
throwing pebbles
and feed off the blackened coals.
I see waves without sound.

© Nov 19, 1993 Sonja J. Phinney

Distant Songs Within

Tonight I drink these words in search of cure.
With my hands, I tremble and find those that are lost.
Numbing the stretch of my body;
The healer teaching itself how to heal.

Zaire, Zaire
sings in me like a cradle.

The steps and hands turn and remind me I am
found in a position, a hand gripped hand.
I run the bridges away.

It is tomorrow
with limbs missing.
I wait on the wall watching
to be last.

Making true thought through hands
shaking find the future.

I knew of today
It was beautiful
the thought of me
healing the mad in dance.

© 1984 Sonja J. Phinney

Slow Going (lyrics)

Take it with ease
A cool breeze.

Fingers touch on top of rock
No sugar
Taste of Wood
And past remembrances.

My feet held in a direction
before me here.

Jump rope steady.

A swing of the hand
And glance of the eye,
Subtle in understanding.

Would you taste the direction?
And take it past.

I'm just turning the flame around

Slow going.

© 1988 Sonja J. Phinney (for Koyo Marrow)

At Soul's Gateway

At Soul’s Gateway

It’s hard even looking
When a Flame needs to escape
The candle.
Doesn’t look much like living from here.
I dream from a solitary pillow
And climb to the open windows.

Hope my words will someday
Sing someone to sleep
Full of landscapes to roam
And trees to hideaway
These words, their harmonies.

I spend some time in observation,
But it’s hard even looking
The tears fall around me
And all I can show is my truth.

Hope that someday there will be no limits
And each hurdle I leap,
Won’t trip me down

© 8/89 Sonja J. Phinney

Red Room with White Angels

I open the windows
and stand alone;
Growing cold in the wind.

Just a part of the story,
I'm looking out down the path.

Now like the mist above the stream,
I hover.

When the days grow,
Never again will it be the same.
Never be the same.
From the red room
with white angels.

© 1984 Sonja J. Phinney

Hoodwinked

The boy was born into the world
with wide-eyed smile.
At three he learned how to hunt
villains and haunt with a blanket over head
in hopes of someday catching Dad off guard.

After a day of playing head of the block with
his comrades at 15,
running around the corn fields with BB guns;
the night finds him shaking
like a leaf, spooked by the wind against the window.

© 07-Mar-2008 Sonja J. Phinney

The White Glove

Watch out!
She'll pry and pry
as a way to get you to
cry, try, by and by.

The years will desecrate you.

Metal over porcelain
fears of scraping
gaping and stabbing
She has the need to clean plate.

Pinball knocks the side bumper
and wheels to my toes
Gutter ball, side rails,
snails and trails of beaten
fluid.
I wish to burn, bruise, ignite.

So give me something bitter
my sweet
to cure me of this ill
The clock ticks in my belly
of mother-in-law glue.

© 19-Jan-2010 Sonja J. Johnston

An Abstract in Time

Sing to my soul.
Take it to the marrow.
Later, we will dervish around the roses
until we fall into our souls.

Then up to the stars they will carry us
While our souls ground below.

I’ll meet you there someday again.
The psychic said were not to meet in this time,
But like a puzzle with a missing piece,
We found ourselves in a crowded place with people
Moving to their next destination.

An abstract in time.

© 04-June-2007 Sonja J. Phinney

The Capture

Attracted to the spider,
To the web
And the sting.

The boundaries
Stick and preserve to my
Wings and feet.

I tell the spider,
“I love you many legs, many eyes,
Spinner, hunter;
I love you.”

I do not understand as he speaks,
‘tic, tic.”

Bundled I am dazed
And to be a nourishment.

I am one with closed eyes.
A jewel, sweet to the taste.

© 09-Oct-1993 Sonja J. Phinney

Overlapping

We awake and remain haunted by dream steps that
follow off just beyond the earthly;
leaving behind names buried beneath our ribs
just beyond breath.

A vessel waits, fur lined.
There is nobody but this singing that accompanies these flashes of light.
The world spins round with it's white bodies scattering like sand clouds,
thirsting for roots
and held by no hand.

We curl into the lap in this cup
Where the edges overlap.

© 23-Jan-2008 Sonja J. Phinney

Where we find Connectivity

Our electric, instantaneous communication has been cut short.
The colors have drifted and faded;
dissipating onto the page, the canvas, a distant song.
Becoming an abstract created by the narrows over something
fear driven.

I buried it in the mountains
All the sparks have been buried,
but there a well wishing
to look into the vast abilities living within,
dancing reels and casting off
thoughts in bottles which drift
like thumb-snubbed daisies down the gutter streams.

Light flickers, getting snagged here and there.

©-Sonja J Johnston 23-Apr-2008

Teacher

Every time I dream of you teacher,

You are in this grand Gatsby house,

Surrounded by mountains, wildflowers,

and streams off a windy, wonderful dirt road.



My college town turns into San Francisco slopes,

Larger than reality, but still quaint and artsy.

Further along is a twisty road that hugs the cliffs.

Off to the side, I turn-off and trail where a wonderful spa

awaits. My guests end up meandering off or turning back.



For the longest time, I was trying to bring people up

to a mountain quarry out in Utah.


I would initiate an exciting treasure finding adventure

above the hallowed train tracks.

If were lucky, someone would make it there with me,

but mainly, they usually vanished moments before.

Beyond this point, a more distant and beautiful paradise

on top of an adjoining mountain.

I seem to make this trip alone.

I'm the only one to see the stone flower.



It’s the same dream to be played out over and over.

Always stopping along the way

the goal, unreachable.



Thank goodness I could bring

People to you Gatsby.

We could chat and talk of such things and

Share our wonderful antiques and written pages...

A refuge in the

Mountains.



Teacher, Teacher…


-SJJ 18-Jul-08

Whirling

My motions are transgressive in this almost soundless environment.

Angels weave through the Jinn while dancing like Lalla

Nude around the firelight, giving off Sophrosyne smiles

And grabbing the sparks

To ignite this wondrous illusion.


©-Sonja J Phinney 05-Jan-2006

When Part of me Left

I set my soul loose for our love.
Our histories lifted to the clouds.
Shells of our selves were then acknowledged
Through the halls and crowds.

They watched the book open
And while the pages were written,
There was a hiccup and a chortle,
A wheeze and a grin.

We took it on and threw it out
Reflecting our energies to
Beggars and old women.

Now we are passengers here
Riding through smoke rings
Throwing coal and blowing steam
Through the windows.

I will always remember that day
blue-eyed in perfect enzo.

Getting my toes caught up in mud
And my mind full of love.

Bitten by the magic of it all
Even with a misguided Shaman leading us to water;
Angels were hovering all around,
Waiting in youthful tender.

Where are we now
As two souls look down?

I see them some days through the willows
Laughing like Greek lovers.

© 02-Apr-2007 Sonja J. Phinney

Childhood Out of Body

Singular focus with just a murmer of surrounding inaudible sound.
My spine stretches and my head moves up in the sheets.
Pulling straight through the headrest feeling the walls as if they too
were sheets.
I'm outside now and find myself drifting down the road and into
another's house.
Years later, I enter this house and know where everything is and
ask about a picture that no longer resides on the wall.

I find myself wishing that I still went out of body
as I did as a child, trading it for
this grounding, not knowing what
it would mean to become
flightless in a sense.

I'm sure someday it will return
in full force and I will again, be overwhelmed.
It is enough for me to be able to write here
at this moment of things I have known.

© 09-Jul-2009 Sonja J. Johnston

Waltzing the Wood

Mayflies, Dragon wings
A raincoat resonates over the spidery legs
of a dancer on her way to see the fidgety fingered composer.
Bushes sway their springy branches.

Angels hover above and the fragrance of Valerian
with Sweet Dame humming all over.

There is the taste of Sumac and Kukicha
in between.

Her leg rises; the conductor's wand balances
on the edge of the willow and between cattails.

With quilled pen, notes enhance like leaves
on the budded trees
Each vein filling.

Tumbling staccato embraces.
Unstable in it's own perfection,
The woodcutter enters.

Each moment of performance initiates a
Waltzing of the wood.

© 26-Oct- 2004 Sonja J. Phinney

Room Full

As the drapery folds, another stitch is sewn.
The burrs stash away snow in their sticky thimble thumbs.
I sit wooden in the living room.

Around me the walls feel my breathing.
Water still drips, cats still play...
Held in a pose simply watching the other hand move.

© 1990 Sonja Phinney

I Have a Hunger

Distinguished and Ethereal,
now here is a handsome offering
with a sip of Kusmi.
Standing in trench coats and not much else.

The sweet minty mist wafts overcast;
a guest washes us gently with it's winds.

© 1997 -Sonja J. Phinney

Noted

I found you, my character of steel
Wound tight in places one could
Easily miss.

Frought in that protective place
Battling, bullet-proof mind of yours.
Slammed with defiance
Without symptom.

We ran the roads therein collapsing.

Plans suspect and pulled.
Chaired chaperon.

They call themselves comrades.

Let’s play a game of illuminator!
Scrap-yard maker.
Inaudible audiences surmise
the inflatable atmosphere.

Opening the wound lets the sun shine in
While security likes to check everything twice.
Giving fire to one’s breath,
Sucked in and held.

Souler-Gypsies advanced upon us
Blowing hands and blessing our backs.

Breaking the glass,
And allowing an opening.

© 1 Dec 11 Sonja J. Johnston

Petulengro

Souler-gypsy
separating into an astral funk
On landslides of legends
With evidence,
summoning up shadows.

The dead meet during our gathering.
Their intentions, lost as if in a crowd.
I purse my lips at the outline
and listen as they pass.

Fragile dolls sound like foreign bells
and penetrate the room light.

There is fear in the
camera man who wants to
bleat like a lamb.

Oh travelers of the divide
like a flash in the trees.
Neither I, nor you are on this
road alone looking for that
that is unknown.

© 04-May-2010 Sonja J. Johnston

Goodbye Lover

My mind can throw
Further than the stone
Leave my head alone.

When asked at night,
Can see
Further than the light.
You can go on home now.
It's ok to be alone.

It's over
Goodby lover
Run through the branches
and live again.

Let go
Go on home
It's better to live alone

And remember this too is love.

© 1989 Sonja J. Phinney

What I do for you is what I do to me

What I do for you is what I do to me


Poisoned by your unforeseen fear of
some dreaded horror that lives inside you
keeping you on some mysterious ledge.
My colors vanish along with various
Abilities to maintain self,
Relaying with conviction all that is
Part of who I need to be.

What I do for you is what I do to me.

The outcome to help another
Overcome their dreaded monster
So needless.

So through this waning moon,
I pull my shell and sullen my energies
While that hero inside me shines only
In a quiet place of which seems to be
Constantly falling off site.

An eraser mark swirled at
the bottom of a cup. Loose words dropping
off in the distance.
Moment after moment,
Lost.

A lady in waiting to wear a full palate again.

©-Sonja J Johnston 06-Oct-2008

False Distribution

He will not talk
I can't listen.
Words, actions, meanings
twist.

A wanted correctness
Blunted blur in confrontation.

Think a moment and connect the past in
and all the possibilities.
I am confused with all this false
distribution


© 1982 Sonja J. Phinney

The House is Going Dizzy

The house is going dizzy,
So make my hair look like fire
As the milk spills on the floor
And the ants go marching one
By one crumb by crumb, by crumb.

An ax ta dent is waiting
As we flee the combat zone
And the sink is getting busy
We don’t need a microphone.

The house is going dizzy.
Too many butterflies in the attic
lady bugs fill the air
While my twirling dervishes have at it.

Yes the house is going dizzy
With this childish delight.
You may think we’re going crazy,
But this is just how we spend our night.

© 02-Oct-2008 Sonja J. Johnston

Comin' to Town

You just stepped off
And a man said something,
“Poncha, if that ain’t alright.”
Waiting for the big screen,
Bebop hummin’ the foundation.

Traveling again
Against the sound of the wind.
Shot off, leaving behind a perfect
Set.
Now, the credit is gone
So much more than I can give
Give it up to lay it down
For the bigger things
That surround.

© 12-Sep-2007 Sonja J. Phinney