Overlapping

We awake, yet remain haunted by dream.
Steps trail off just beyond the earthly.
Names buried beneath our ribs.

A vessel waits, fur lined.
There is nobody but this singing accompanying flashes of light.
The world spins round with white bodies dispersing like sand clouds
thirsting for roots.

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

© 23-Jan-2008 Sonja J. Phinney

To the Drunk

When you say you have lost that direction,
Sit out in the breeze.
It is still inside you.

When you hunger what you have lost,
Look far into the distance.

What is captured in a snapshot of time can never be lost.
Upon our return, we are greeted into the house of wisdom’s essence
That has left its clothes in another room.

The time of external enchantment has left its paints by the water.
The seeker is drenched in the forest drinking through roots
Directing through this body.

© -Sonja J. Phinney(1986)

Graced

Here is the drum roll into ancestry.

The flowers are in their radiant dresses

Release a score of greeting.



The divine reflection as shone from

Our beloved teacher

Who in true commune radiated out to society.



The poet in his flying suit

Passed during the full moon as

We continued in the state of awake.



In this realization, we are burning

From this great mystical one

The heart is unable to escape.



© Nov 2010 -Sonja J Johnston for Art Willis (1936-2010)

Hypnos

Stone Lyre in hand,

 half-sleep under a voussoir,

 the spleen of the cave bellows,

Crystal temple of illusion.

In a thousand journeys

my eyes are still of stone

in need of waking,

holding only the inconsistent

glow of the moon.

Sonja J. Johnston  © 19-Oct-2010 (for Thomas Regiert)

Nest to Flight

From under your lashes frequencies 

mirroring yellow and cobalt blue let off into me. 

and settle in the comforts of the floorboards.


The velocity of it all.

An instant, inflated by breath.



We window towards it;

pull it up by the strings

and pluck unknowingly.


It is not a problem,

But don’t let the outside

know.

We talk of velocity

and connection and all of

a sudden, all sparks

are squandered by a

jealousy that knows not

of what we are here for.

© 30-Oct-2010 -Sonja J Johnston

The Mill

One can hear a tea kettle whistling
and the sound of wooden rockers
on a round sewn rug.

Alive with cobwebs,
the morning breeze
makes them sway.

A sewn time piece
by piece in a circle.

She rubs the counter clockwise until
the shine is proud of it's reflection.

Mint leaves plucked and brought in,
one chewed.

Currents are plump and ready, eager, bobbing.

A single inchworm moves in the delight of the moment.

© Sonja J. Phinney 1989

Pull String

We were long lost companions that chanced upon fate and took it to the rocks and willows.
Carillons uncurled to form L's.

From the unexpected halls to a rock of hues so brilliantly alive.
My out-of-body experiences showed me your room, yet months later, under the stairs our souls were pulled.
Our collective masters left us there.

Naked in our own fires
Nicotine, sushi
Italian blood cream backyard Buddha with
hydro field buzz,
popsicle induced.

Land marked with an early tide to Cry, Cry Baby.
A Rune's unbroken charm, Gebo flit.
A gull's calling and swan's chasing wing.


Sticking our toes in it all...
Jingling gypsies
Waltzing in the weeping willows,
awakening heroic thinkers.

With a dash of Earl Grey we were licorice fingered prophets driving with the radio locked
to the moment when the breaks lock into 5 lanes backwards.

Fast we fell into the nearly October winds turning about; bringing what we had found from the sea,
curbside, graveside, and from the pockets
of curious salesmen.

©-Sonja J. Johnston 22-Jun-2010

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
which is unknown.

© Sonja J. Johnston 04-May-2010

Wrestle Pennsylvania

She is singing, he is roaring
in the confines of our house.
Rocking Daddy like a boat
hardly able to float
Across the lava pit.

Warrier and Princess
Rock Star and Engineer
With guitar and drum
And foot stomps in gear
The dance troupe arrives.

Heft the day
the children are at play
and work doesn't come easy
by light.

Forget about the carrots and broccoli
there is dessert in freezer and sugar
hidden in drawers,
Stashed like a pirate
and between clothes.

There needs to be some further swashbuckling
before it's time for bed
and let us not forget,
not without stories to fill their heads.

Prayers and lullabies
of foreign songs with
words to hang in
their minds
Retained for
the next lifetime.


© 05 Apr 2010 Sonja J. Johnston

Hot Creep

Another decomposing train;
You can detail the connections to the bone.
Working with this stone cold feeling,
Stove top pilot burning
dulled blue and overgrown.

We stand under the correctional downpour.
Heat lightening radiates.
You look like a hot creep all dripping like that
Standing there as the evening indicates.

I am slicked in your old coat
hand blown with enthusiasm
brought back to life from memories
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

The Dream Narrator

The dream narrator
jumps in after I've confronted a spectator.

Boldly and suddenly there is a pronouncement
of where I am and who I am speaking with.


The narrator speaks as a teacher.


Then there is a pop,
like fire in glass.

I continue to laugh like
this is some sort of divine joke,
but I'm simply told that I need
to take this seriously.

This world I continue
to terrain is not just
a place in which to juggle
until the sky escapes me.

I wonder, what does it matter
that I am an entrant,
playing with the elements
of this narrated truth.

It's still quite impossible to get
others to follow me up the mountain where
I have seen the immaculate beauty of the
stone flowers.

© Jan 2010 Sonja J. Johnston

Hits

The night shines of filigree
among an attentive audience.

Here we are again, in this sleep-scape;
Constantly walking into the crowd of
embodied energy.

Charmed by my awakening,
I laugh at the dreamers as if their
actions towards me were ok.


“No, states my narrator, it is not ok
this is very much real to this man who
wants you.
Don’t let him in.”

I close my light and open my eyes
To the waking world
escaping the longings of a stranger.

-SJP 10-Sep-2007

Memory of the Lost

Are you mourning today?
Detached from the command of the road
Watching flowers and the breath
Leaving them?

Is the approach vacant of all of its physical nature where only shadows move?

Can you hear the whispers from the pictures upon the wall?

Where has your reflection gone?

In the chambers of every waking moment,
An imprint lingers.
Transgression of thoughts processed
Imprinted as words upon a page.

How simple to the fatal steps we grow nearer.
But how blessed in each day rising;
The remembrance of embraces keeps shining.
Off like a shot and we are swimming in our dreams;
Taking histories and shining them into the future's mission.

A flash of flowers and pictures on the wall;
In our essence in our presence we take to bed with us
Them all.


-Sonja 23-Aug-2006 (For John Chipura and Brendan Dolan, 911 WTC)

Golden

Traveling back to youthful places
Peppermint showers and laying nude
on the Cliffside.
With a Choward's violet
between my teeth, I breathe
a freedom through my lungs.
The mountains call to me
as they do the scavenger birds.

I hunt for what is glittering
beneath the branches.

-SJJ 25-Aug-09

Amore Morir

Amore Morir

Caught an illusion underbreath

Thought it was a kiss

whispering through the mirrors of a kalidescope.

The eye hesitates

then paws away the conditions

leaving with innocent footsteps and

masking off the outer edges.

SJP 1989

Experiencing the Other Side

Let me take you on this journey
to where the 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

Childhood Out of Body

Singular focus 
A murmur and inaudible surroundings.

My spine stretches as 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 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.

I traded it for this grounding, not knowing what
it would mean to become
flightless.

© 09-Jul-2009 Sonja J. Johnston

Guide Winds

What came with us here and
where is it going?
Can we refind it in the
winds that are blowing?

See how many centuries it has taken
for just one particle of sense to make itself known.

I speak from what brushes silent against us.
We are accompanied and
networked through one another
unearthed and other-worldly.

-SJP 15-Jan-2008

Nestings

Sand birds nestle.
as I swim to them
and rest on the ship-wrecked trees;
parting the few yellow flowers
Climbing up the steep cliffs.

In this moment,
I am content to
nestle into this
flutter above the
river's edge.

© 11-Apr-2008 Sonja J. Phinney

The Medium Beneath

It flits like a morning song bird finding pieces of my memories to build it's nest.

Children giggle above the doorway 
leaving smells of rose and hints of cattail remains in my floorboards.

You sweep the house
like a new mother,
protecting and directing.

I am caught in this hologram;
an overworked canvas,
giving rise to the medium beneath.

© Feb 1986 Sonja J. Phinney

New Beginning

A flicker and a flash came to me
when you crossed the intersection to the other side
Leaving the room full of ghost bumps.

You're off to earn your angel PHD;
Unbound from the body, wearing a misty memory.

I've come to build a bridge
To where you are and have evidence
That walks with me now.

Gravity may pull,
But when the willows bend
And we are open to the winds,
There is a new beginning at hand
That frees all sorrows.

© 07-Jan-2008 Sonja J. Phinney (for my Dad)

Play the Otherside

A reflection off a window is recorded.
A painting becomes a fractal of this recording.
Our lives, reviewed.

We are thinking of our next moment.

With our husbands, our wives.

Our next moment with our children,
Our next moment, and our next moment.

We are looking for the flip-side of our record
in slow motion.


Unprocessed is this time between the pages,
drifting.

We tend upon aloofness,
a step away from being blindly ignorant.

Catching harbingers is an art,
giving them away is another.


© 15-May-2009 Sonja J. Johnston

Bought by Dafoe

I am that nude on the canvas.
My image resides in your house I shall never enter.
Somewhere in Hollywood  I suspect.
In that room, there is part of me that sparkles in the sunlight.
Just a thought that passes my mind from time to time that somehow, I too am famous.

©-Sonja J Phinney 30-Oct-2006 For Willem