Bio
Patrick Johnston is a UK-born, Australia-based writer of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. His work often explores liminality, impermanence, and survival, weaving surreal imagery and cultural critique into intimate personal narratives. He is the author of The Gaps Between the Stories and has recent or forthcoming publications in The Louisville Review, Argyle Literary Magazine, Panorama: The Journal of Travel, Place, and Nature, and Love & Literature. Living with bipolar disorder and in recovery from alcoholism, he writes with candor and resilience, grounding experimental forms in lived experience and emotional truth.
Patrick Johnston
Equine-Nots
They've got horses in their mouths.
Maybe it's a trick of the light
This time of year
Like thylacines in Hanoi alleys
Curb Elders watch
crouched in nicotine silence.
If I had to bet
I would say there were no horses.
And anyway, mouth horses
make no sense.
But I'm not a betting man.