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