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

Accujuncture

Dressed in this fine breath of a flicker of an outline

People, animals, and flowers grow toward me

bringing messages, messengers, and gifts of energy.



I wear my robe like a teardrop,

fluid and attracting.

Everything is magnified in the distance.



A pin point among other pin points

is being pulled magnetically with such force,

melding.



On the grounded side,

we are moving slow as the sun comes up

and the moon goes round.



I see masterpieces in the

blink of a flicker between the strict lines of this

chastising world.



© 10-Jul-2008 Sonja J. Johnston

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