The House is Going Dizzy

The house is going dizzy
My hair looks like fire
As the milk spills on the floor
And the ants go marching one
By one crumb by crumb, by crumb.

An ax ta dent is waiting
As we flee the combat zone
And the sink is getting busy
We don’t need a microphone.

The house is going dizzy.
Too many butterflies in the attic
lady bugs fill the air
While my twirling dervishes have at it.

Yes the house is going dizzy
With this childish delight.
You may think we’re going crazy,
But this is just how we spend our night.

© 02-Oct-2008 Sonja J. Johnston

Poisoned

I am poisoned by your unforeseen fear of
some dreaded horror that lives inside you;
that keep you on some mysterious ledge.

My colors vanish along with various
Abilities to maintain self,
Relaying with conviction all that is
Part of who I need to be.

What I do for you is what I do to me.

The outcome of me helping someone
is now your dreaded monster to overcome,
So needless.

Through this waning moon
I pull my shell and sullen my energies.

That hero inside me shines only
In a quiet place of which seems to be
Constantly falling off the radar.

An eraser mark swirled at
the bottom of a cup.
Loose words drop
off in the distance.
Moment after moment,
Lost.

My paints reduced to Mono-tonal palate.



©-Sonja J Johnston 06-Oct-2008

Be That Bold

As we awaken to our tomorrows
From yesterday's perpetual sleep,
Life slowly becomes an enormous truth.
Alive in the same spirit with the echoes of youth.

It's not easy wading through this noisy sea;
being swept away and brought forth.
We keep our eyes wide open like the ever shifting sky.

It is our job to comfort others
as we search aboard this earthly shipwreck;
As we try to produce a shine
amidst the mutters
to what REALLY exists.

Our friends may be trapped,
but we are singing to them
in our dreams.

What we have built
can not save us, yet
what we create in our minds out of compassion
to those we haven't met
is the key to all truths.

It's time to practice
'Cause it's time to see
Freedom for the soul,
for the universal we.

Pass this on, to young and old
and give it right in this life.
Be that bold.

© 30 Sept 2008 Sonja J. Johnston

Assessment

I feel like words inside a book looking out of the eyes of the reader.
As the story develops, images unfold under red dark room lights.
We speak of our own destinies unknowingly.

The after-fire leaves smoke in our hair.
Ink flows out and is captured in a moment.
A glance in another.

Where is this place I keep dreaming?
Whose shoes are on the door?
Why is it here I keep returning?

How did we ever give up our souls at dawn
For the sake of meeting again?

Answered and unanswered through this life determined.
A moment here and there...


© Sonja J Phinney 17-Oct-2006

Dad at his Funeral

There is a line defining flicker

An impression in space.
In this state of grace,
an enlightened embrace
enters stage center.

I waltz in this moment,
elevated.

© 11-2008 Sonja J. Johnston (Dad's funeral)

Sourcing

I found the end to the reoccurring
Scene in my head once I found you
And made a connection to the mountains.

The seeking is like a chimney and
Our feet are warming.
Cold, bright rivers on the mountain
Signaling the next stance.

If we really knew the way,
We wouldn’t be here at all.
Blessings in the night.

I’m charged
We are charged
And we have found
The cord across
Our waters.

-SJP 12-Sep-2007

Crow Feathers

Inner quarrels darken as darkest crow feathers.
On such a glittering day as this,
feeling wounded and shielding.

Staunch and ancestral are the overtones,
A shadow of a memory moves.
A black and white faded glass image
of someone standing in the distance.

I was strayed from home after entrance.
My comfort ran from the cold touch of my fingertips
and quiet lips.
The wooded dreams enchanted that of mountains,
not of lilies still.
My flowers remained in the scent, not the texture and vision.

Beside me stands that warrior as I flit like a fairy around and
around penetrating the atmosphere.

His strong hands brace as he focuses on
the space between these words with
cherished definition as a comrade
in this faith that is I.

© -Sonja J Phinney 11-Feb-2008

PTSD And The Soldier

You look so handsome with your sane suit on.
No one can see the rage from here
or imagine the kiss from your simple country lips.

The jury dismisses the broken branches.
A smile and a handshake later
finds you wound up and broken down
in your work room.

Looking for a handle, a clasp,
something to hold onto
without association.

© Sonja J. Johnston 4-27-2008

Stretching Up

Stretching Up

Mender of hearts hear my spurrling arms flutter.
Fill my cup just a little.
Fur warmed

Uncork the bottle genii pearled.
Laugh nose to nose with me.
Find me long handed and shoulder winged.

A few drops light my cup.

-SJP 1986

Bedroom Spirits

Are you still entrapped as things turn from black to white?
The scent of flowers that seem to move from inactive to active in the white flakes of winter;
Set apart in the offset?

Descending in and out of their reality;
several years knowing neither birth nor ending...

Frosted windows provide a tranquil empty space
where we fixate our fingers.

Lights flicker to the past.
Jagged white tromping spirits
run up to the foot of the bed
in hopes of hearing
another bedtime story.

© 23-Jan-2008 Sonja J. Phinney

Wee See Inside

A galloping prance as suspicious as a
Court jester teasing at incoming visitors.
This child looks into the eyes of another and listens
For the colors.
Smells are finely registered.
Sifting away particulates.
Gems, succulent in taste,
Light penetrates through the vapors.

Eyes are as bright as lures in the snow
Find a box to hide their innermost
Inside.

-Sonja J Phinney © 27-Sep-2007

Sour Mittens

It is wintertime and we walk into the candy store with our snow encrusted mittens in search of sour candies, wax lips and mustaches.

I play behind the mounds of snow remains,
at the top with icicle stuck to my palm.
Another snowplow passes and I’m and hit by the spray.

At that very moment, Randy slid down a hill and under the wheels of a passing car.
I was too young to know about real tears.
I still don't know about them actually.

That night, I  drifted off to sleep and took flight over the electrical wires, streetlights beneath my feet.
The tree tops narrowed by my waist as I glided over the geography of my little town.

White winds swept round our houses and the smell of sour mittens permeated the air as theywere  removed from the silvery,  radiator.

© -Sonja J Phinney (10-Dec-2006)

Spent

Hollow clouds hang,

plaster and paint

These people have coins on their eyes.


Deerskined scouts with bandanas, scourging.


It was found round the center cut,

Dark and flaring.

The tide winds round the naked ankle of a summer’s day.

Roots are harvested by a man with big hands.

How heavy is the sky?

Intermit, stand still

and still the meadow’s whisper.


The hum is in the beginning.

A Midget and tall man standing

A symbol of torture hung round his

neck..

speaking of witnesses.

-SJP 9-9-03

Sun's Up

Sun’s up

The orchestra of morning sounded from one
Cow to another
And in response, the commuter traffic.
The countryside dressed in yellow and orange
And through its openings, birds swiftly glide.

“Sun’s up” whispers Peyton into my ear
Like a carnival had just turned up it’s lights
And was taking customers.

I know these days are being erased moment
By moment, but as we move into tomorrow,
These words will remain written for these
Days of sun and autumn.

-SJP 30-Oct-2006

In The House of the River Witch

She sleeps at night,
With the covers ready to sail.
The haunted meadows
Tail around in play
Till dawn’s burning ray.

A pinch and sprig
She brings in
To make a tonic
That bitters the tongue.

She knows the path that is hidden
And can touch your soul with passing glance
The river witch holds fast
To the secrets and blessings untold.

She is the river witch that stories are told
She is the river witch that moves in gowns of gold
Wise is the river witch
Who lives shoreline

Wise is the river witch
At ley line’s edge
Where she empowers her spells

Arcana voices of ancient times design
And the seven blessings shine down
crowning this field with erratic sound
A girl finds some sticks and makes music
With the elements
Singing upon found ruins and
Waltzing the wood
Ash in her hair

While a child awakes
With the scent of smoke on her tongue
A dream-spell translated on her face
And given to her mother
Picked up from the crib

She is the river witch that stories are told
She is the river witch that moves in gowns of gold
Wise is the river witch
Who lives by the river’s edge

Wise is the river witch
At ley line’s edge
Where she empowers her spells


© 19-Oct-2005 Sonja J. Phinney

Souler Winds

The goddess wind now whispers your soul eternally.
She took the wings and
Turning them in her
Hands, called you there.

Forever playing the airways
Wild as you wished to live
Your life.

-Sonja J. Phinney 10-10-07

Antennas

On a rocky moraine we correspond.
Echoing and reflecting out to each other
like rebel mountain goats pushing upward.

The night strikes obsidian.

St. Elmo’s Fire in a moment lighting up our lives.

© -Sonja J Phinney 06-Sep-2007

What is Left

I’ve a bronze star in front of me,
But all stars fade away with time.
The season for travel is over.
No more good foods and drink.
All the days are passing and
Sleep is in abundance.

Even Sister Catherine who diligently
Would come to visit as a regular,
Has been reduced to a pawn on a chess board.

Airways narrow, bodies decline
Minds draw blank between…
Lost and foreign to self,
To the ability.

Broken
I see so many broken
With just enough sentence form
Or movement to state there is
Something still alive.
Unwilling to give up and throw
The final towel in defeat.

-Sonja J Phinney © 20-Sep-2007

Patch Worked

Unlike the medium,
I am attached to the living.
Taking on the life charge across the miles
Holding your pen in my hand
And another’s laughter in my lungs
As my feet kick about leaves in another country far
From where I sit.

I am attached to the living,
But how is it I am feeling so vast?
There is a network out there
A network weaving through our lives.
It is a wonder I can keep my
Taurean feet on the ground.

Sonja J. Phinney  ©  18-Sep-2007

Lemped

Hestia comforts near the dog sled red fireplace,
radiating the house full of phantoms and extinguishing
the stiffness.

A history beats against me analogous to the movement
Through walls and springed mattresses.

Smells of unconsciousness warbles as the people
Blindly enter and leave with shell-like gazes.
Possessed with spirits channeled though.

© -Sonja J. Phinney 30-Aug-2007

Two from 1984

There are doorways
We find from the past.
Doorways in which escape
A time in place,
Hungered for
In the moment of opening.

© 1-June-1984 Sonja J. Phinney


The Hand and its lines,
Paths.
The land and ley lines,
Paths.
Distant reachings
Within.

© 01-Jun-1986

5 Sonja J. Phinney

Catch That Rush

Give chase to the divining mediums in air
as several spirits contribute to the atmosphere.
All answers are melding as they fly off.

You can take your delinquents and take back the tides
On radiant condenses of sky.

Shining smiles that light your brain
and haunt your heart's refrain.

Send off your angels
to hover up high
Singing songs of radiance
With sounds of glory.

© 15-Aug-2007 Sonja J Phinney

Out of her Mouth like a Cork

Out of Her Mouth like a Cork


Her tears in your eyes
Sing a lover’s song.
Crossing over like a heavy current
She cut a hole in her dress where the cigarette ran through laughing with the headlights on in the fog.

Who once said: "You have to try everything once."
Would be here for a limited time only
Disillusion’s blood stain
Our celebration in her passing let's off like a cork escaping into the atmosphere.


© -Sonja J Phinney 6-Apr-2005