Soul-Splitting

I set my soul loose for our love.
Our histories lifted to the clouds.
Shells of our selves were then acknowledged
Through the halls and crowds.

They watched the book open
And while the pages were written,
There was a hiccup and a chortle,
A wheeze and a grin.

We took it on and threw it out
Reflecting our energies to
Beggars and old women.

Now we are passengers here
Riding through smoke rings
Throwing coal and blowing steam
Through the windows.

I will always remember that day
blue-eyed in perfect enzo.

Getting my toes caught up in mud
And my mind full of love.

Bitten by the magic of it all
Even with a misguided Shaman leading us to water;
Angels were hovering all around,
Waiting in youthful tender.

Where are we now
As two souls look down?

I see them some days through the willows
Laughing like Greek lovers.

© 02-Apr-2007 Sonja J. Phinney (for Chris)

Systemic

A drunken user now stares at your
foreign shape,
but is unable to conjure
up anything.

Ozone to Stone.
He was dispatched back to
Babs after failing to meet
the demands of life outside
the brothel.

Life's wardrobe dressed itself
while you climbed back into the
womb of sorrows.

God knows, we tried to shine the
light in that dark place.

© 11-May-2011 Sonja J. Johnston

Slow Going

Take it with ease
A cool breeze.

Fingers touch on top of rock
No sugar
Taste of Wood
And past remembrances.

My feet held in a direction
before me here.

Jump rope steady.

A swing of the hand
And glance of the eye,
Subtle in understanding.
Born with a crescent lip.

Would you taste the direction?
And take it past.

I'm just turning the flame around

Slow going.

© 1988 Sonja J. Phinney (for Koyo Marrow)

Goodbye Lover

My mind can throw
Further than the stone
Leave my head alone.

When asked at night,
Can see
Further than the light.
You can go on home now.
It's ok to be alone.

It's over
Goodby lover
Run through the branches
and live again.

Let go
Go on home
It's better to live alone

And remember this too is love.

© 1989 Sonja J. Phinney

Rig Semba

Fractured glass beneath my feet.
All these trees aren't as sullen as they seem.

Shaken by the sun
with half burnt ash.
Off the cuff and into my waking hour.

Into these woods let time erase all that has set to erode.
I wait to taste the feast and am left with salt in my hair.

The messenger brings 10,000 chords and casts them out
Into each life,
each destiny.

A surveyor in the foreground steps.
Chanting out in motion of the reflective charge.

One hand swings
while the other hand slaps.
One branch sways
while another branch snaps.

Hiking the mountain
while the Buddha laughs.

© -Sonja J. Johnston 26-Feb-2013

Coney's Centaur

The waves
jump up to hug us
like hundreds of immigrants
approaching the fairgrounds of
Coney Island.

Underwater Centaur
splashes traces,
delivered embraces.


Distant stars shoot
off above an unresponsive
city.

The big illusion clouds us.

Every day, the ocean washing to shore.

© -Sonja J. Johnston 24-Feb-2013

Factory Work

We are calloused puppets of trade
in this factory life
having been victimized.
One can hear harrowing clicks
and cries.

Stumbling in proportion to dogs fighting,
a low tonal growl.

Work begins at six AM.
as thunder fills the city.

A washing of the disabled.
Ambling like a turbine
only a bit off sync.

Wings are bitten at the shoulders.
Feet tip to the uncontrollable
sequences of reflection.

© 1984 Sonja J. Phinney

Holiday with the Dead

What's all this dead table talk?

The angel chimes start to ring.
A bit of music fills us and
Everyone stops to listen.

Who discards the hand
forgetting the attachment?

Ring on,
angels!

The room is full of this swirling dance
Spreading abundantly upon our pallets
The harmony of years gone by.

Yes Peyton, Yes Anjoli,
it is a miracle.

©-Sonja J Johnston 27-Jan-09 (to all who have passed that are still with us Diggs ValleyRoad, Hamilton, Va.)

Harbingers

All of you with heart songs to sing
of girly things of flowers and rings
Getting stronger with the tides and the winds.

The orchards sing to the child running wild.
Lavender, juniper, and white lilies in the grove.

Step aside a beat
as the fiddler fern speaks
Dreams drift, soft and low.

Angels all a glow.
Lavender Sprite,
Lily white touch,
And the scent of juniper upon my nose.

Asleep the sparrow, for morning's yet to wake.
I can hear her stick across the chain linked fence;
a miner's mile past the graves.

68,000 miles the earth moves every hour.
They have their stopwatch on time
for our musical design.

Never lose the harbinger that sits with you.
Never cast away the sail.

Memories, like honey bees
Make things sweet when allowed.

Never stop believing, you can take the dream home.
There is fate as we awake.

The conversations that took place while we slept
hold tight within the sparks.

Be observant of the shadows, in the narrows,
and in the curious things you spy.

They sing of apples, peaches, and pumpkin.
And if they ask me, I will hunt them a mountain.

© 10-Nov-12 Sonja J. Johnston for Nate and Joff

Breathy

Sparks flash about the room.
The night's watch is in tune.

All the days of silence run past
Keeping me busy from the other side
Just barely breaking through.

A covered table and celestine presence.
My reaches just short of the empty chair.
Just short of the empty chair.

Breathy words speak so close to my ear
Making sure others hear
Making sure that others hear.

From the other side,
a distinct voice between us.

With pensive pen
I wait for the cursor to move.

Breathy between us
is the time where we open the solution
and let it drip out.

We will drown it later.
Our arms heavy and minds full.


© Sonja J. Johnston 19-Nov-11 (about a direct voice experience)

Maya Knows of Flowers

New Smoke tingles the tongue.
She left too soon from flowers once in bloom.
Playing games in the dark.

Liquor laughing its ways
Calling him forth from southern winds
Playing in the meadow
till darkest arrives.

Falling last in the smoke
Below the rotting stones,
But remembering softly
of the flowers once in bloom.

© 1983 Sonja J. Phinney (from book: Disconnected Steps)

Running into the Roar

The lions parade as I run into the roar.
You stand at the shore throwing pebbles and feed off the blackened coals.
waves without sound.


© Nov 19, 1993 Sonja J. Phinney

Hid Against The Distant Sky

And then, surprisingly
we were engulfed
as if in a giant wave
pulled from our toes
and fingertips.
Destined to hide against the distant sky.
Dis-releasing
Unfathomed light.

The highway jerked
and we were all back on this wild ride
of bump and glide
open wide
with a new fuse.

Nerves though the land tubes
Cut off from inside.
The dull thump reminding us of what holds our pieces in the wider universe.

© 11-June-2012 Sonja J. Johnston

Pearls and Silver

I hugged a dream off you.
It's river ran right through me,
breathing oxygen and light.

I saw your barn
and I watched the barn wood
and drift wood
turn into pearls
and silver.

I hugged a dream off you.
I hugged a dream off you.

I took it home with me
It danced inside of me
Spoke of the mystery.

Threw its web around
Strung up and now
bound like so many
that continue their destiny.

Escaped to the cliffs,
Pulled from the depths.


Did you hug a dream off me?
What there did your mind see?

What unlocks us from our jail cells
Can be so simple
If we only knew how simple.

Two passing souls
throwing off threads


I touch the barn wood and drift wood
And they turn into pearls and silver.



© Sonja J. Johnston 04-Jun-2012

Lark in the Mystery

Transcend the boundaries
And split the lark.
All the skins
that you’ve shed
stand stark.

These times have slowed you;
Put a film
over your eyes.
Peeled back sharply;
An owl's cry.

Flood waters rush and
I get this forever feeling
That this will stay,
Manic Ego driven
ability superior.


The next moment,
I am gasping
for colors again
like a fish deep below.

Deep fish below.


Walking the shallows.
Inside me, whales.

Wetting the reed
after the music has played.

Gaining and losing
Sight of touch.



© 23-May-2012 Sonja J. Johnston

Comin' to Town

You just stepped off
And a man said something,
“Poncha, if that ain’t alright.”
Waiting for the big screen,
Bebop hummin’ the foundation.

Travelin' again
with the sound of the wind.
Shot off, leaving behind a perfect
Set.

Givin' it up to lay it down
For bigger things
That surround.

© 12-Sep-2007 Sonja J. Phinney

Held

Second arrival,
encased and slumbering.
The cargo was stopped
for this lifeless shell.

This moment,
This moment now,
Timed out over and over again.
Into the moment, a harsh berrang!

The space,
weakened.

An instant passes,
and another.

"I am afraid."

The terror speaks inside.
It is loud inside;
full, but rock still.

She made herself invisible.

© 1993 Sonja Phinney

His Cheshire Teeth

Running into the Roar,
Into the Cheshire teeth of some mad man
gesturing semantically
about some invented theory.

A baby-doll sits staring lifelessly alive in
the little red rocking chair built just for her.

Beyond the reach of this,
A dash of hair and reflections corner the windows.
Caught in the confines, the turbines of mental illusion.

Far away, to water, pulled away out of body
Drawn to pools, throwing pebbles.
As others feed off blackened coals.
Waves without sound
Lions parade.

A thought is relayed, that calms the man's clatter
I look at him with Qi.
Eyes open and close closets full of recognition.
God mighty music to the soul.

In another second, we both know that no drug is needed
for this insanity.
It is something as simple as this.

Sometimes music is not heard, but walks in your soul.
It can be a powerful tool in taming the savage.

©- 07-Sep-2007 Sonja J. Phinney

Lyre in the Meadow

Children echo out from atop
doorways and spring mattresses

A pair of eyes,
points of harmony.

In fields of our childhood,
history is sung through the
stories carried by the wind.

© 1988 -Sonja J. Phinney

Clave Snap

In the morning,

I sneeze out the ashes

of my leftover dreams.


Oh to leave the enrichment of

the internal riverbed made.

Where the unknown familiars communicate.


Where I am brave enough to ask, but also foolish enough

to dare enter.



I leave traces everywhere like bread crumbs

of myself.

They are snatched up by hungry scavengers.


Seemingly innocent mysteries

Seemingly innocent crimes.

Shape around the morning clap of claves.

Snapping behind my lashes.



© Sonja J. Johnston 02-May-2012

The White Glove

Watch out!
She'll pry and pry
as a way to get you to
cry, try, by and by.

The years will desecrate you.

Metal over porcelain
fears of scraping
gaping and stabbing
She has the need to clean plate.

Pinball knocks the side bumper
and wheels to my toes
Gutter ball, side rails,
snails and trails of beaten
fluid.
I wish to burn, bruise, ignite.

So give me something bitter
my sweet
to cure me of this ill
The clock ticks in my belly
of mother-in-law glue.

© 19-Jan-2010 Sonja J. Johnston

Devil in a Bottle

Your words send a powerful sword through my spleen.
Did it make you feel important in a relative sense
as the surreal thrash and air pushing out penetrated?

Stranger’s eyes follow my bloody dance through a patch of grass.
Dreams stain as I am
unable to lift my feet out.
Wounded with heart hanging
Becoming petrified.



© 23-Apr-2012 Sonja J. Johnston

In The Old Farmhouse

Contained to this room,
we limit ourselves to talk.
Only the shadows stretched by a far away train pull at our backs,
edging us into the kitchen
where the water runs.

Hands squeak on the empty dishes and
Abandoned sparks flicker about.

Turning off the electromagnetics in recognition
Of future lifetimes.

© 1992 Sonja Phinney