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

Waltzing the Wood

Mayflies, Dragon wings.
A raincoat resonates over spidery legs.

She, a dancer, prances down the evening path;
bushes swaying their springy branches.

Valerian and Sweet Dame hum.

There is the taste of Absinthe in-between sentences
of Sumac and Kukicha.

Her leg rises; the conductor's wand balances
on the edge of the willow.

Linden nutty notes and trumpet tongues bounce
amongst these melodic hearts.

Leaves quilling ink
filling each vein.

Tumbling staccato embraces.
Unstable perfection.

The woodcutter enters.

Each moment of performance initiating a
Waltzing of the wood.

© 26-Oct- 2004 Sonja J. Phinney

Being Walked

Today, my first love is a two year old child
pulling at my fingers,
begging... me, me, see, see.

He works at my chains
in which I have lost the key.
He says he can fix my heart
with his plastic tools.

All dreams have become heroic
and my ventures swim within.

Sometimes I light a match
and look for colored flames from my breath;
With so many sparks hatching from my brain,
surely there must be fire escaping somewhere.

The child puts on his fire hat and charges forward,
Me! Me! tugging at my fingers, allowing colors
of morning dew to run through my limbs.

His plastic tools become a ball being swept from my hands
Through imaginary hoops
in the clouds.

-Sonja J. Phinney 13-Aug-2004 (for Peyton)

Project of the Heart

Find that elemental spot that exposes the soul.

Where moments pass like a coaster ride,
Sparklers and the sound of hot air balloons.

It is in the turning of a hand
Glanced in an eye off just off stage.

Open the project of the heart.
Care not of what others may think of it.
Every moment will penetrate through to passers by.


© 11-Aug-2004 Sonja J. Phinney

Axios

I talk with you through blue eyes.
Throughout life, the cord remains.
We stand as reflections, amazed.
In a word, Axios.
Never a thought as to anything less than what is there.

Violet resin lingers on our finger tips and lips.
Pups romp and wag in circular motion.
Sap drips down,
Now stuck to a little boy’s hands
Who is Nosing needles from the pine.
A curled caterpillar protects itself.
Time in sequence, is shut off.

Candles burn
Shadows form
Winds howl a blind memory,
Dream-like.

In this adopted habitat there are noise carpenters,
Dame’s Rocket, and Kukicha.
The ignition of the brain is a powerful motor.
Outlasting all events that we know in time.

© 23-Feb-2004 Sonja J. Phinney

Waiting on the Rain to Shine

My money's been laid up.
Nobody's got a hold on me.
I'm just holding on myself.

Time's been wishing for a better place
to shed my inner grace.
Placed in wait.

The smoothness bends slightly and
I am pulled to see this way of living
I have never known.

Living in shadow.
Waiting for the rain to shine.

- 1992 Sonja J. Phinney

Windows Watch

One haunt reads along the shoreline.
Shadows into mist
Light into spark
in the eyes of two eternal lovers
A passage instilled within, lingers out to the depths of the universe.
Others look at us still, like fresh mint by the stream.
Daisies, Dames Angels…
Something delicately placed there for its beauty.

©-Oct 1988 Sonja Phinney

Waters

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

© 1990 Sonja J. Phinney

Movie Within

It is a fear dream.
Enslaved and hungry
Teeth grinding
Muttering to the dust
tempered, aged, and finally uncorked.

-SJP _1990

The Days of Venus

Oh for the days of Venus past.
Multicolored stripes, swinging heads.  
Laughing, murmuring trees blast.
Leaves  now turn from gold to red.
Without thine smile, there comest the tear.

Dream away thy sorrow in the sun.
Thou canst always live our lives in fear.
We mustn't leave in fright of the gun.

Art thou wondering about the trees?
The way they smile? 
The way they breath?
So talk to me in the night breeze.

Now they have gone.
Now they have left.
Come listen to the heavens.  
Come see Venus giggle among the sky.

-Sonja J. Phinney for Renaissance Day,  © 1984.

In the Pines

He balanced his hand
Sweat-locked from the chase.

A valiant ardor to his lady
Now, with his head reeling
he lay the pewter cup upon the stone.

With a heartfelt glace
and burdened limbs,
he set to rest.

Amber ash pulling him off to dream
Stuck like an insect.

The grey mares retreated
A falcon stood in the distance
as several deer in strident force
scuffed the ground and snorted.

Turbulent winds rushed round one tree
and then another.


His lady's fervent hands set around his,
nestling close in the pines.

Sonja Phinney ©1995

Aikido on the Shore

Faltering and then bending.
An everyday thing turned into such a horror.

Stress and release
Stress and release.

Hid beneath, in a burrow of past belongings,
haunted as hands touch them.

Slower now as the scanner processes.
Breathing forward, hands at side.

The wave is in motion.
Gaining and falling.

Released into mist.

-Sonja J. Johnston © 1995

Kismet

I was caught in my power of words.
I built a snare for us to get stuck in.
Ashamed of the happiness stolen.
My love with an ardor
has the passion of a moth.

-Sonja Phinney © 1991

Blues on You

Shuttering winds cast 'round the streets
as I pull you with my charm.
I heard she claimed her blues on you.

We often pass in reflection,
How careful we step,
Afraid of breaking the egg before it's allowed to hatch.

Your number still remains on my counter waiting for a time.
A connection is all that's needed, but I love to pull my charm on you.
The roses are in bloom, yet dead flowers remain in this empty room.

© 1988 Sonja Phinney

I'm Still Driving Your Heart Away

I remember
The mask you wore for me.
Night and day.
The alcohol driving your heart away.
Our struggles thrown and begged.

The love behind the mask
Bound inside,
Unwilling to show.
I see you now, ‘bout once a year
And cry the love behind the mask.

© Sonja J. Phinney Sep 1989

Busin' It

Hung together
A voyage stressed
Ganging on
Ground a drum
Ring the station.
Gripping a sandwich
Bag closing, shadow growing.

©-Sonja J. Phinney (1982)

Waking Up

Hanging seaweed from trees
Goats greet the day atop the shed
Holes in the ground
Baby slung and humming along with the bees.

© 03 Feb 1992 -Sonja J Johnston

Superior Motion

I’ve been looking for something
That’s hidden
Between the dew
And the leaf.
A combined reflection
Of baby’s two feet.

5 AM dance
The stick I call
Rattle in entrance
And run strong
Strong and solitary
Solitary in the sun.
Time to grow new wings.

A combined reflection
Solo run
5 AM
Hidden between
Baby’s two feet
Branch chewed
Rattle in entrance
Follow heartbeats.
Time to grow
Two feet fall
Growing wings
Between the dew
And the leaf
Making a superior run.

Would you call that child
From that 5 AM dance.
Stunned inside.
Chew the marrow
And rattle
Those new wings
Kick back the can
And find the flyway.

© Sonja J. Phinney 1989

HAVE FATE

I have wings of destined hue
And I have fate to see me through.
The syncopation comes in waves.
See my eyes, sunny blue.

We shoulder to shoulder the future.
Let free the choices,
Invade the moonlight,
Pool the mazes,
Moment surfaces.

The body narrows,
the mind has eyes,
so wake up and step inside.
Become the marrow
Arch swoop and sparrow.

Sing through,
Dance through,
Hold through.

We shoulder to shoulder
Moment voices
Free the choices
Have Fate
Have Fate.

We shoulder to shoulder the future.
Let free the choices.
Invade the moonlight.
Pool the mazes.
Moment surfaces.

See my eyes, sunny blue.
I have wings
And I have fate.

Sunshine in blue.


© -Sonja J. Phinney 1988 for Koyo Marrow

Red Room with White Angels

I open the windows
and stand alone;
growing cold in the wind.

Just a part of the story,
I'm looking out down the path.

Now like the mist above the stream,
I hover.

When the days grow,
Never again will it be the same.
Never be the same.
From the red room
with white angels.

© 1984 Sonja J. Phinney