Guiding Waters

I waded in the evening's dreamy pull;
Hands upon the ripples.

I hear music in the sands brushing
against the shore from the winds.

Standing ahead, looking behind, moving on.
The flowers from the trees fell at sunset.

Watching from a distant place as people fall
from the wild hard places.

I float on my back like a piece of driftwood,
with an unknown destination.

Sonja Phinney © 1993

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.

© Sonja J. Phinney 1986 for Koyo Marrow.

Carillons

I. With no intention upon sleep,
II. yet no intention on waking.

I.

Atmospheres streak through me.
I am elsewhere smelling bread being made;
listening to the distance;
feeling foreign in my body.

II.

I am haunting a stranger’s house along the lakeside.
I’ve terrified him.
He tells me not to look at the pictures by the stairwell.
I’m out-of-body and perhaps his recognition of me is more frightening to me than I am to him.

II.

I’m morgued and am being transported around like a doll a child might talk to before sleep.
Stiff, and heavy with stench.

I.

This time, I awake with the smell of ash in my hair.
I had met a child by a fire on the shoreline.

She has also awoken,
surrounded by her white bed sheets...
Hair also smelling of ash.

I.

In the mountains, I come across a hum;
A flash of the Japanese character, Power.
I am inside the courage shell.
The sound penetrates my forehead and back
Ringing large and loud along the lush Gorkha trails of Nepal.

In the distance,
There are Carillons ringing
From bells to quakes,
Time tolls it's sound
from air to ground.

© Sonja J. Phinney Apr 2006

Suspended Living

The Butterfly hovers
between two worlds.
A humming bird flits
to the same vine
and then away.

The moth
wants something
so badly it is
eaten by flame.

My heart is suspended
over the distance
while the pull of my wing
feels the sureness
of flight.

© -Sonja J. Phinney 1987

Dream UK

Traveling the wind plucked by harps.
I’m taken to Tavistock where is mentioned,
One of the first printing presses.
With a band of locals
I am again reawakened to the
Sound of some home I’ve yet to receive.
Cornwall calls, yet I’ve not yet flown.
Music, friends, and rocky land
Beg my attention.
Sleeping on the Gig
While little one floats
Through my ears.

© Nov 2004 -Sonja J. Johnston

Jigsaw Sky

Ripe
Elastic
On the pavement,
Soon to be sprayed down.

He stands sideways in his trench coat
Distorted in the horizon
Looking in a peculiar way, upward
And in a moment, onward calling
In the direction of a gravel walk.

A red smoke stack pipe rises
Out of a jigsaw sky.

Abstraction, soon to diminish
As words most often are, between desires.
Defining a sentence of a few weeks
And expressing himself in disgust
To the world, to a puff of smoke.

As quiet as the cancer itself.

© 1981 Sonja J. Phinney

This House is Built of Laughter

This place is not my own.

What’s here is not my home.

Even when I reach it sometimes,
I feel myself alone here.

This house was not built with hands.
Come in from the heat.

Lie down from the stars from the ground
Beneath your toes on fire.
Come into this house.

Fill your bones with laughter and sing again.

This house is built with laughter
come on over
fill your bones with laughter
and sing again.

Reaching for my place
through rocks and leaves and thistle
This ground is not my home.

Drape me in white.
Make me thin.
Take me home.

© 1987 Sonja J. Phinney

Lilac and Pine

It was a hot Monroe night
In a psychiatric summer.
I was trying my time with
A schizophrenic brother.

Living in a house with one sick
and one drug induced musician.
I was summoned to this place
As a makeshift physician.

I ran off on a hot summer's night.
The place got loud and I had a fright.
I drove like mad past the city lights
And found myself a lilac tree.

I curled up beneath it
Surrounded by a grove of pines.
The police saw my car and were
Looking for me.
Curled up silently.

They walked by with their torches bright.
Hands near their weapons.

I silenced my sound
And sucked in the scent.


They walked right by and didn’t notice me.
Stepped right by with their tall black boots
And into the dark in pursuit.
Past the pines, looking for me.
Curled up so silently.

I rushed back to my car with no delay.
Ran though the grass as if on air.
Drove off into the AM power line hum;
No place to lay my head.
No corner to run.
No place to drive.

I lost my safety and returned to the city;
To the place now settled down.
Placed my head on my pillow.
Neon sign blasting through my window.

©-Sonja J. Phinney 1993 Rochester,NY

Inside this Giant

Inside this giant whale, encircled.
From the moment we’ve been taught

So much more we could already see.

©-Sonja J Phinney 07-Jan-2005