Pat Gibbons

Pat Gibbons is a poet, musician, student, and teacher. His poetry has appeared in Spindrift and Sketch. As a musician, he has released singles, EPs, and albums. He also records an NBA/pop culture themed podcast. He has attended Iowa State University and Indiana State University and is currently pursuing a Masters in English. Pat has also taught high school upperclass English courses (Literature and College Credit Advanced Comp.) for little over a decade, and also is in the process of seeking a publisher for his first poetry book titled, Irritants and Artifacts, debuting two of his poems from that collection - “Goggle Girl” and “Exposure” - at the 2021 “PAMLA Arts Matter: Among the Unrest” roundtable.

Goggle Girl

crouched in mud

eating crackers and

sticking to shadows

the lights are looking

their tread is heavy

no smiles in the trees

to offer philosophies

madness and malice abound

the oiled metal and gasoline

popping rivets and stripping gears

vibrations getting close

and she scurries away

hiding in a movie house

Dracula curiously on a loop

again and again and again

through her goggles she feels

safely separated, as the machines

rattle the ceiling, shaking loose building bits

that gently fall, like snow

on two upturned windows

she hasn’t moved in days

blackened steam filled her cruel cruel dreams

no cakes and dresses and well-meaning men

shiny dirt wishing to wake away the madhouse

she’s impossibly trapped, feeling Mina

and when she could watch no more

she turned her head slowly upwards

so beautiful . . . the celluloid dust fires

dancing in an unending hourglass

she cleared her view once and let it slip away

Exposure

Catalpa flowers are falling like snow

today, gently disturbing the rivulets running

through a micro-world of melting snow

caves. Look closely, the crowns of our heads

are hanging open by rotten hinges, soon to

drop away, especially in this sun. A single

petal offers fleeting comfort, but the water

will find a way, the melting snow will see

to that. The tree presses down, moving

aside irritants and artifacts, its branches

are reaching out, desperate for the bright,

still blue. Below, our grayish lobes glisten

and throb, blanketed with a wreath

of flowers, a soft buttercream set to sizzle.

Look closely, our crownless heads are flailing

in the rivulets, on a tilt counting too many

degrees, a load with too great a shift — we

are slipping, we are scrambling, we are

scratching at the wood.