Holiday with the Dead

What's all this dead table talk?

The angel chimes start to ring.
A bit of music fills us and
Everyone stops to listen.

Who discards the hand
forgetting the attachment?

Ring on,
angels!

The room is full of this swirling dance
Spreading abundantly upon our pallets
The harmony of years gone by.

Yes Peyton, Yes Anjoli,
it is a miracle.

©-Sonja J Johnston 27-Jan-09 (to all who have passed that are still with us Diggs ValleyRoad, Hamilton, Va.)

Harbingers

All of you with heart songs to sing
of girly things of flowers and rings
Getting stronger with the tides and the winds.

The orchards sing to the child running wild.
Lavender, juniper, and white lilies in the grove.

Step aside a beat
as the fiddler fern speaks
Dreams drift, soft and low.

Angels all a glow.
Lavender Sprite,
Lily white touch,
And the scent of juniper upon my nose.

Asleep the sparrow, for morning's yet to wake.
I can hear her stick across the chain linked fence;
a miner's mile past the graves.

68,000 miles the earth moves every hour.
They have their stopwatch on time
for our musical design.

Never lose the harbinger that sits with you.
Never cast away the sail.

Memories, like honey bees
Make things sweet when allowed.

Never stop believing, you can take the dream home.
There is fate as we awake.

The conversations that took place while we slept
hold tight within the sparks.

Be observant of the shadows, in the narrows,
and in the curious things you spy.

They sing of apples, peaches, and pumpkin.
And if they ask me, I will hunt them a mountain.

© 10-Nov-12 Sonja J. Johnston for Nate and Joff

Breathy

Sparks flash about the room.
The night's watch is in tune.

All the days of silence run past
Keeping me busy from the other side
Just barely breaking through.

A covered table and celestine presence.
My reaches just short of the empty chair.
Just short of the empty chair.

Breathy words speak so close to my ear
Making sure others hear
Making sure that others hear.

From the other side,
a distinct voice between us.

With pensive pen
I wait for the cursor to move.

Breathy between us
is the time where we open the solution
and let it drip out.

We will drown it later.
Our arms heavy and minds full.


© Sonja J. Johnston 19-Nov-11 (about a direct voice experience)

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 (from book: Disconnected Steps)

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.
waves without sound.


© Nov 19, 1993 Sonja J. Phinney

Hid Against The Distant Sky

And then, surprisingly
we were engulfed
as if in a giant wave
pulled from our toes
and fingertips.
Destined to hide against the distant sky.
Dis-releasing
Unfathomed light.

The highway jerked
and we were all back on this wild ride
of bump and glide
open wide
with a new fuse.

Nerves though the land tubes
Cut off from inside.
The dull thump reminding us of what holds our pieces in the wider universe.

© 11-June-2012 Sonja J. Johnston

Pearls and Silver

I hugged a dream off you.
It's river ran right through me,
breathing oxygen and light.

I saw your barn
and I watched the barn wood
and drift wood
turn into pearls
and silver.

I hugged a dream off you.
I hugged a dream off you.

I took it home with me
It danced inside of me
Spoke of the mystery.

Threw its web around
Strung up and now
bound like so many
that continue their destiny.

Escaped to the cliffs,
Pulled from the depths.


Did you hug a dream off me?
What there did your mind see?

What unlocks us from our jail cells
Can be so simple
If we only knew how simple.

Two passing souls
throwing off threads


I touch the barn wood and drift wood
And they turn into pearls and silver.



© Sonja J. Johnston 04-Jun-2012

Lark in the Mystery

Transcend the boundaries
And split the lark.
All the skins
that you’ve shed
stand stark.

These times have slowed you;
Put a film
over your eyes.
Peeled back sharply;
An owl's cry.

Flood waters rush and
I get this forever feeling
That this will stay,
Manic Ego driven
ability superior.


The next moment,
I am gasping
for colors again
like a fish deep below.

Deep fish below.


Walking the shallows.
Inside me, whales.

Wetting the reed
after the music has played.

Gaining and losing
Sight of touch.



© 23-May-2012 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.

Travelin' again
with the sound of the wind.
Shot off, leaving behind a perfect
Set.

Givin' it up to lay it down
For bigger things
That surround.

© 12-Sep-2007 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

His Cheshire Teeth

Running into the Roar,
Into the Cheshire teeth of some mad man
gesturing semantically
about some invented theory.

A baby-doll sits staring lifelessly alive in
the little red rocking chair built just for her.

Beyond the reach of this,
A dash of hair and reflections corner the windows.
Caught in the confines, the turbines of mental illusion.

Far away, to water, pulled away out of body
Drawn to pools, throwing pebbles.
As others feed off blackened coals.
Waves without sound
Lions parade.

A thought is relayed, that calms the man's clatter
I look at him with Qi.
Eyes open and close closets full of recognition.
God mighty music to the soul.

In another second, we both know that no drug is needed
for this insanity.
It is something as simple as this.

Sometimes music is not heard, but walks in your soul.
It can be a powerful tool in taming the savage.

©- 07-Sep-2007 Sonja J. Phinney

Lyre in the Meadow

Children echo out from atop
doorways and spring mattresses

A pair of eyes,
points of harmony.

In fields of our childhood,
history is sung through the
stories carried by the wind.

© 1988 -Sonja J. Phinney

Clave Snap

In the morning,

I sneeze out the ashes

of my leftover dreams.


Oh to leave the enrichment of

the internal riverbed made.

Where the unknown familiars communicate.


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

to dare enter.



I leave traces everywhere like bread crumbs

of myself.

They are snatched up by hungry scavengers.


Seemingly innocent mysteries

Seemingly innocent crimes.

Shape around the morning clap of claves.

Snapping behind my lashes.



© Sonja J. Johnston 02-May-2012

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

Devil in a Bottle

Your words send a powerful sword through my spleen.
Did it make you feel important in a relative sense
as the surreal thrash and air pushing out penetrated?

Stranger’s eyes follow my bloody dance through a patch of grass.
Dreams stain as I am
unable to lift my feet out.
Wounded with heart hanging
Becoming petrified.



© 23-Apr-2012 Sonja J. Johnston

In The Old Farmhouse

Contained to this room,
we limit ourselves to talk.
Only the shadows stretched by a far away train pull at our backs,
edging us into the kitchen
where the water runs.

Hands squeak on the empty dishes and
Abandoned sparks flicker about.

Turning off the electromagnetics in recognition
Of future lifetimes.

© 1992 Sonja Phinney

Focused Third

That's just my third eye
Balled up in crystal.

You wondered even
when we first met
and told of the ships upon your walls.

Sometimes I touch the spirit of your future,
like a connected hand to a string.

Oh brother soul.
that penetrates my daily whispering grasp

Why? I ask as if I have nothing to do with you.
Why from such a distance?
Why as we are living different lives?

We are twinned, twined, billowing life as we throw about
Stabilities in the meantime.

While somewhere connected in time we are angels floating with ourselves
attached.

©- 20-Sep-2007 Sonja J. Phinney

From 1994

Walking in Sleep


Dying irritation,
Smells weaken,
producing sleep in a continual.
Moving, but not out.
The chances were forewarned.
Light is static and stings.
Outside working, out of the otherside of mourning
Can see no more of the elsewhere.

© 1994 Sonja J. Phinney



Worms

Early, early
bluebirds,
Sunny blue
I am this fragile and small blueness
with wounded shoulders and exhausted heart
Flying back to a rock above the waterfalls at Awosting.
This rock has worn different energies over the seasons.
It has been violated and sucked of it's energies.
It's shine, disrupted by those desperate.
I flutter about and sing alone, twee, twee.
The wind rushes, I hide my head, bring up my feet and wait
for the passing.

© 1994 Sonja J. Phinney


A Small Thing


Teeterd a plaything
back and forth.
Melody scampering
stumbling innocence
Voices entrapped
snared into new cells.
An instant, timeless in its ring
A forelorn thing.

© 1994 Sonja J. Phinney

She asked if I
were indeed
Peter Pan.
"Little Tink", I said
"Hold fast to your dreams."

© 1994 Sonja J. Phinney



Swimming over
as my final day remembers that it must
move on.
Winds skirt.
The warmth of the flowers beckon a memory.

© 1994 Sonja J. Phinney

Three-year-old Strike

You want to play it safe,
Move back to ghost.
Determined and remembering movement without body.

Shadows look down on us
And try to penetrate into dream.

Hushed singing through strands of baby hair,
Cares not for this side of physical.
Stubborn and with a look so matter of fact,
My child, my child is on a hunger strike.

© 21-Mar-08 Sonja J. Phinney

Sich Einstellen

Are we really as wise with our burdens as
We feel we can provide aim?
Form is a blanket
which covers our eyes.
Beyond this we are delving, delving
And diving away, away.
Opening the light
In preparation?
Are we prepared?

© 29-Nov-2007 Sonja J. Phinney

The Great Divide

Play me your song, that I long to hear

When time arrives, I’ll know.

Show me the moment I can place in view.

Give to me the smell of you.


Embolden upon this silver charm

Your powerful audacity.



While I'm still subject to this gravity

Throw off a little breeze.

Bring me to that place for a moment more

and leave it on my tongue.



How the stage it sets the image

and broadcasts it to

All eternity.


In that moment, I am ungrounded

Drawn electrically.

Screaming through agelessly

Reaching toward the spires.


It’s always late,

But it’s never over.

All will hear the

Soul weavers singing through.


Play me your song, so that I may hear.

As the time arrives, I’ll know.

Show me the moment I can place in view.

Give to me the smell of you.


Embolden upon the silver charm

Your powerful audacity.

With virtue it hums inside.




© 20-Mar-2012 Sonja J. Johnston (for Dennis J Greene 1964-2002)

Direct Voices

Moment whispers in the air
in this old 1859 farmhouse.

"Hi", "hello", "Hey there", "over here",
"So n ya"
Making my head turn.

Close to me.

"Hello" I respond
as I continue to work.

I must say, they are trying

As I lean into other side.

© Nov 2008 Sonja J. Johnston

Universal

An impelled white apparition in front of the fire emerged
as I stood with my new babe in arms,
Unable to know with reason
of fear or trust.

Presented with a mist upon my heart
I rebelled against the motion
clutching fast my daughter
unable to protect her against
either fear or trust.

A passenger has found us and has
taken a seat.

From this ethereal light,
we remained intact.

-Sonja J Phinney © 13-Mar-08

Liven it Up

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.



Blast all those spectators

See how many you can craze.

Overload the sockets

In this giant maze.



Have you gotten your alphabet

all souped up in this mess?

Making that navy seal look like a girl scout

In a defiant green dress.



© Sonja J. Johnston 07-Mar-2012

In the Prison my Father Grew

In the prison that my father grew

The pillars were smooth.

Nothing relayed was nothing

Anyone knew.



Only from the edges the gravel aligned.

A fine scramble of security, of tumblers and barn swallows.

Birds squawked for their black horses in the cold moon-shine.

I was so far away.



In my jasmine fortress,

silvery-white lunaria left a mosaic impression.




The artifacts there grew.

Those I would later find.

Relatives who would profess to the intrigue and mystery.



Regret kept itself inside that lock;

trusted in the air of your breath.

I was young with that breath

upon the window observatory.



The monster I feared that the thunder might bring.

Of drunken smoke filled pockets,

destroyed and passed out.



Reveled in my adulthood.

Uncovering the cloth,

peeking at the edges,

a mirror burning my eyes.



Cold is the morning upon our fence posts.

Walking spirits we pretend to be in our waking.


I am your baby.

I come and go like puffs from

Someone's pipe.

Moments of undefined presence.



I will whisper again in your ear

Before too long...

Still here,

A piece of you.



© Sonja J. Johnston 06-Mar-2012

Having the Time

I used to march by the old freight line
and search around the stream for hours.
It used to be a care-free time.
We'd wait for April showers.

Rattle addle in the cool wet grass.
Rattle addle addle all day.
Rattle addle addle passing the time away.

I caught you falling down a drunken hill
Naked at the calling.
We slept along the old rail trail
A stag abruptly awakening.

Rattle addle in the cool wet grass.
Rattle addle addle all evening
A rattle addle addle journey of thy dealing.

Today we fix our houses
to up uphold the order
amid the chaos.
Fluff our pillows
and fine linens
as if a century has passed over us.
Hurdling over with a puff in the face
and a blow to the chin.

Rattle addle in the warm green grass
Rattle addle addle all day
Rattle addle addle passing the time away.

© 28 Feb 2012 Sonja J. Johnston 

No Escape

I am hunted for my solitude
and haunted by my solitude.
The prey of the mistrusted.
Mistreated for growing a new limb alone.
Nourished by daydreamed waters.
My solitude is never empty.

© 1987 Sonja Phinney

Those City Lights

Drops of dew in the trees from the street light, fake stars.
Glimmerings of pretended unknowings.
Walking the streets, early morning
Deep gatherings, reflections.
A different glow, real and falling to rest.

© 1987 Sonja Phinney

Shadow Key

You prepared the motion
of the snowflakes that
drift beneath the shutters.

Entrancing mind-wheels in a doorbell moon;
attack-dog street side of
summertime.

The aftermath trickled into a
hourglass, hand-blown;
falling to the other side.

Your feet pushed off the dock,
waving a good luck,
never see you again good-bye;
but you know, there's a
string attached to every boat
that has docked ashore.

© 06-May-2011 Sonja J. Johnston for Todd Sloane

Wreck Loose

Nature's palate tasted of burgundy and moss.

© 01 Feb 2012 Sonja J. Johnston

When Come True

Ambient Pride
Blind cities
Moving in constant fury.
A mountain seeking rainfall to help it
To a more stable platform.
Luggage carried,
Folded.
I too, folded neatly into a case.
The perfection once sought
Now perfectly a gleaming glass
In the sunlight.
I wish there were kids with slingshots
And pebbles to throw at me.

-Sonja J Phinney © 1992