The Capture

Attracted to the spider,
To it's web
And and it's bite.

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

I am to be of nourishment.

I am one with closed eyes.

A jewel, sweet to the taste.

© 09-Oct-1993 Sonja J. Phinney

Craic

I bet no one ever warned you;
That I could fold you up and send you,
Straight on down to the ground.

Why wind yourself up
And let yourself go
When the circus is in town?

That act will get you tied up in a knot
Where there is no escape
From under the cape.

There are no more cake walkers;
No more prizes to win.

It’s a sucker’s walk
That’ll land you empty.

In those eyes vanish
What you’ve set out
To begin.

© -Sonja J. Phinney 04-Mar-08

Sling Shot

You ask me when?
I say, "Ask the one who holds the grains of sand."

Waiting for the change
to re-arrange a new gear.

All you want to do is
shatter it
Platter it
Toke it up to victory.

It is all you need.
It is all you concede.

Hours and Hours
Welcome to the drop zone
where the sparks fly
into the hanger.

Don't get sand in your eye.
Don't, Don't, Don't
let it pass you by.

You ask too may questions
and stick yourself inside the hourglass
confined by time.

I am wind brushing against
it's glass.

Sling Shot.

© -Sonja J. Johnston 23-Apr-2013

Casting Sails

The Pope mobile resolves into the distance
He is waving to the crowd.


Confession time is here
As are the demands for miracles
On the conveyor belts of time
and it's remains.

Forever moments
in stop delay
a postcard
set aflame.


Today's yells
behind the shelves
of a fabricated job.

We catch the news
between the elbow room
and sip our beers when we can.

The eggs get dropped
our friends get popped
returning home again
and placed six feet under.

It is quiet
and still this
ghost of a town
where we once knew
is a shoe
and a pipe
a fragment

diddle.

©-Sonja J Phinney 1998

Following The Direction

You gotta set it up
just to break it down.
It's a method of self destruction.
Under constraint
and all the red tape,
you just gotta wonder
who has the gumption to hide away the infrareds
from the series of misconceptions?

Bring to me the mystery,
the masters of show and tell.
Breathe life to the wisdom among us,
heavy with harmonics,
amplified by sight and smell.

Tired eyes
follow western skies
with predetermination.
Aching thighs
seek mortal cries
a sweet indiscretion.

It comes in waves
and stays for days
Leaving little trace
of it's perfection.

Then it melts away like a
snowflake on the tongue
leaving an olfactory glimpse
and an element of intrigue.

© -Sonja J. Johnston 20-Mar-2014

Fire Proof

In this three tiered transparency

laughter hits me with tears of history.

This poverty assembles its attributes;

detaching the beautiful sad glow

beside me, sparkling.



The proofs are washed in red

Forced to confront the dregs.

Eyes utter landscapes

intact.



Pleading liberties by name

in the pockets of soldiers.

The underbrush echoes,

strained and off-shot.



Under deconstruction

scattered places extend

to where I must attend.

Fallen absence marches

and is privately eaten by fire.



©-Sonja J. Johnston 18-Mar-2014

Venom

We are charged by the very thing that becomes poisoned to the charge.



I am bringing flowers

I am bringing a gun in a pillow-case.



This misunderstanding is just a standing, misleading.



Troubles asphyxiate.

The heat is packed deep.



Still, the movement of energy in motion;

Of gallant emotion riding in, igniting.

We eat off our flower heads.



©-Sonja J. Johnston 17-Mar-2014

Samadhi

Listen to the house speak
while all are asleep
Hear the hum of a lullaby.

Samara twirling down
makes a sound
in spoon cupped hands,
Samadhi.

Regenerate while awake
Become the one fresh from the vine.

Be pulled
out of the heart
Of pure divine.

© Sonja J. Johnston 27-Jan-2013

In My Hand

This path has found us prisoners.
Dark with patches of sun.
Scissors and gourds hollow metal.
Strings in our lips shrunken down.

See how you are controlling the seas
And upsetting the weather?
Breaking chairs and conflicting our mothers?

Opened mouths
Opened eyes.
Bent and broken your breath feeds the flame.

You are playing horse shoe
Ready like a ringer.

Harpsichord child in a sleepless night.
A shrunken head in my hand and a
Documenting traces of a hungry hunter.

Running and returning
With gourds and scissors
in my hand.

© -Sonja J. Johnston 24-Aug-2013

The Fourth of Yesterday

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

Switching lines of finer foreign design.


We tempted new destinations, sweet stepping to victory.


Was it the shake in the line that pushed our souls into a perilous pole dance?

Or 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

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

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

White Charade

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

You have become pale.

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

Dandelion Hill

Panrious hears my sideward footfall,
Gravel Sounding.
I enter like a waitress with Betty Boop smile;
Skirt fluttering in the breeze at the doorway.

Panrious reaches down into his record collection
And pulls out an album.
He knows the record by the grooves.
“Duke Ellington right?”
“Sure is” I say as I play it for him
While he swings back to a steady rock in his chair.

Ellington plays glass ear tones.
While the black cat sits like a musical note on the windowsill.

Scratches like sparks from a fire
Jump up between synchronous notes.
Dust dances in the light.

I bring a wine-glass
He holds with two hands,
Listening for pouring vibration to cease.

Squeaky Chair
Toy horse on springs
Flowers in the meadow.
He smells the cork in my fingertips.

“Caterpillar Dust” he says as my skirt flutters against the chair.
I remember when I used to hold him in the fields,
Blowing dandelions into his face
And kissing him in supreme joy.

Panrious reaches, touching the glass on the window.
His smile is vast and timeless.
Fingertips capturing the sun.

© Sonja J. Phinney 1990

Today's Catch

Ho Jack bear
Toes mossy,
Bees hived up.
I trot myself up to the cabin
and eases my feet to dangle.

Pappa cookin’ fire good
Fish is good.
Back, hands worked.

My favorite is the fish’s tail.
Pappa cooks for me.
I eat and grow strong
Beat my drum
and rattle my body in youth.

© Sonja J. Phinney 1974