Name a thing, and it unravels the moment you speak.
Meaning flickers, hushed at the edge of every breath.
At dawn, a crow-black thread stretches across pale sky,
some echo of a verse, wingstroke-torn, drifting beyond
reach. Once, the horizon was only rumor, slipping across
half-remembered roads; now it gathers our scattered thoughts
like coins in a jar. We’ve always sensed the caves within,
the rolling brine of secret devotions, each one shifting
in time, like a dusk-glow dissolving just beyond the borders
of dream. I assume there is music hidden in the silence,
a quiet chord waiting to unfurl when the last word fades.
This poem was first published in Eunoia Review on April 8th, 2025. I am grateful to the editors for featuring my work.
by Phoebe and Nick Allison
Fluffy pink unicorns dance on rainbows
while long-lashed dogs wear flowers like fur.
Soft green Yoda-lights sway overhead,
framing my second-story window
where moonlight spills onto the bed,
silver-casting quiet shadows.
I drift,
carried across a calm sea of sleep.
At dawn, I wake in a brighter room—
its sharp light hums like a secret.
A blue shark swims
across a storm-tossed whiteboard
before the bed floats gently down
a river of tile.
Magic doors open, a deep breath,
and then—nothing.
Quieter than dreams,
deeper than memory.
When I surface again,
the curtains sway, soft as whispers,
their patterns slip through the mind-haze.
Family waits, voices steady, smiling
as I slowly return to my body.
A kind nurse guides me to the chair.
Its wheels sing toward the elevator,
to the car,
and then,
Home.
Whole again,
though I never truly fell apart.
Note: This poem was first published in Issue 3 of Poems for Tomorrow, a poetry and art journal that shares creative work with patients in hospitals and care facilities. Their mission is simple and good: to help people feel connected, loved, and heard during hard moments. They put together anthologies of poems and art that are placed in hospital waiting rooms, senior centers, and long-term care units—places where a little beauty can go a long way.
“Magic Doors” is a chain poem co-written, line for line, with my 11-year-old daughter, Phoebe, during the days surrounding her surgery to repair a severe double fracture in her left forearm. Both the radius and ulna were shattered, and the repair required rods and a full-arm cast. The poem tells her story through the eyes of three rooms: her bedroom the night before, the pre-op room, and the recovery room. It’s about resilience, imagination, and the strange kind of magic that shows up when you’re stuck in a hospital and still trying to feel like yourself. She’s an amazing, kind, empathetic, and creative kid, and I couldn’t be more proud of her.
They also published Phoebe’s original painting, Stargazing Cat on a Beach at Midnight—an acrylic-on-canvas piece she made for her grandfather while he was in the hospital recovering from throat cancer surgery.
Please check out Poems for Tomorrow and support what they’re doing. It’s a genuinely cool and meaningful project.
Taurus is a great big bull—
he watches close in the cold months,
when our part of the planet
leans away
like the sun
is a close-talking stranger
On a bus to Chicago,
I once met a man who said
every victory is a failure
of perspective.
We’re always traveling south,
if we go far enough
We’re bound to arrive
at the same conclusion.
Timing is the only
uncertainty—
when the clock swims past eleven
It’s time for me to call it a night.
The older I get, the more I see
the appeal in rising with the sun,
following it closely to bed
I open the door to a scent—
white chrysanthemums,
the kind usually reserved for funerals
in winter,
but now doing a passable
impression of a daisy
on a windowsill,
splitting the north breeze
in two.
Acknowledgment: The first line is borrowed from “No More Poetry” by Wilco.
A beautiful set of lyrics—classic Jeff Tweedy.
Taurus is a great big bull
He hid my heart out in the woods
The heavens move so slow
But I’m quick and good
There’s a God-shaped hole
Bleeding love up above
And in my heart full of soul
I just can’t seem to get enough
And you don’t have to be poor
To hang with me
Cause there’ll be no more
Poetry
She’s never been one for weighty words,
but her expressions shine through with clarity,
a language I’ve learned to read
across the room.
Her smile sketches the degrees of joy,
her shoulders measure the weight of weariness,
her touch—a whisper of empathy.
And her eyes—eyes that reflect
all the ways blue can be—
mirror shifting moods, fleeting thoughts,
the quiet undercurrents of her heart.
A brief window into
the storms and still waters within.
Inspired by the wonderful line “The sky showed me all the ways blue can be and how many clouds it can hold” from Bridgette Tales’ post, Photography: Hit the Road.
I met a house finch yesterday.
Oddly enough,
we were nowhere near a house.
She sang me her song,
weep-weep-sidderee-churr,
and cocked her head,
shot a side-eyed glance,
as if to ask
whether I approved.
By the time I stopped debating
if it’s odd to talk to birds,
and offered my compliment,
she was gone—
presumably flitting off
to serenade someone less hesitant
to heap praise
on songbirds in busy public parks.
The yew leans into her thousand years,
while the moon moth burns swiftly through
a handful of days. Eight decades feel fair,
if spent well, we tell ourselves.
Antares yawns across another eon
and winks at Sirius, grown weary
of our fragile math
and wistful speculation.
The newborn winter sky,
driftwood-gray and heavy with mist,
fosters a strange kind of contentment—
a feeling that brushes
the edge of melancholy
yet never settles there.
To call this weather bad
feels like a failure of perspective.
It simply is.
So I lean into it,
letting it press
somewhere beneath my ribcage.
The porcelain mug
contrasts with mud-brown coffee;
its aroma mingles softly
with incense
and muted conversation.
Heat trembles at the surface—
molecules gather courage
to rise into air,
a quiet departure
joining the endless cycle:
dissolution, reformation,
death folding into rebirth.
I suspect, secretly,
we know how they feel,
or at least long to.
As I raise the warm cup,
a homeless man shuffles by,
tattered blankets
trailing through frosty puddles.
His sudden, hollow presence
pulls at the edges
of my fragile equanimity.
I wonder if guilt
can exist without responsibility,
or if responsibility,
however delegated or denied,
lurks in the quiet corners
of our collective comfort.
I thought of you then,
in those days of forgetting,
your eyes stealing from the moon,
dagger-deep but drawn with fatigue.
The phantoms of time promise plans too lofty to keep.
Hello, friends.
Another New Year’s Eve has arrived. The weather couldn’t have been better—65 degrees and sunny, with a light north wind. I spent the day visiting the Austin Zen Center, taking a walk along Lady Bird Lake, and enjoying a cup of coffee at Civil Goat on Guadalupe, where I wrote this short poem.
Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to read or comment this past year—and even more so, thank you for all the incredible poetry you’ve shared. Y’all are the best. It’s awesome to have a group of such talented, inspiring friends—that I’ve never actually met.
Wishing you all a safe, happy, and peaceful new year.
– Nick
Make Friends with the Fallen Leaves
A quiet door opens,
as another closes.
The last breath of the year
feels much like the first.
This next revolution greeted
with mindful gratitude,
an earth-bound walk.
When feet brush the path,
it sounds like surrender.
A song shared with a winter bird,
a nod passed to a stranger—
just for a moment,
before momentum carries forward.
We smile,
pay our respects to impermanence.
And make friends
with the fallen leaves.
I caught myself thinking
about what I’d be like as an old man—
then saw the folly in assuming
those years will ever arrive.
There’s no use in nostalgic guesswork,
no refuge in what remains in the balance.
Both daydreams dissolve
under the lens of what is.
To traffic in futures
that never arrive
is to trace the road to suffering.
We live suspended in a series of nows—
to hold lightly,
like breath in the chest,
and then let go.
I see myself
in the old woman
at the next table in the café.
Her face carved with worry and wisdom,
her hand quivers
as she stirs her coffee.
I see myself
in the angry teen at the bus stop,
his daily journey to anxiety.
Oily skin branded
with acne and angst,
a crossroads of ambition
and uncertainty.
I see myself
in the young mother,
cradling an infant
in her protective embrace.
A fierce sentinel,
a boundless love,
a longing to nurture
and shield.
I see myself
in the soft cheeks
of that child
nestled
safely in his mother’s arms.
A bundle of promise,
feeling only raw emotion,
a life anchored
in the present.
I see myself
in the homeless veteran,
body marred by war,
soul weighted with sorrow.
A tin cup, a cardboard sign,
a quiet plea,
pressing onward
toward another sunrise.
I see myself
in the prostitute,
existence narrowed
to a series of scores.
Track-marked arms,
and willing smile
betrayed by eyes
of deep despair.
I see myself in you—
for I am you, and you are I.
Divided by time, shaped by fate,
alone, yet entwined
in our brief existence,
woven by the thread
of our shared humanity.
This poem, I See Myself, was first published by Spillwords Press on December 6th, 2024. I am grateful to the editors for featuring my work.
To stop reaching for the wheel,
we settle into the backseat of awareness.
A backfire is a bird is the wind—
just sounds,
arising and dissolving.
Waves and photons dance
upon forms that become faces,
or trees,
or nothing at all.
Thoughts, too, merely appear—
no different from the rest,
just another ripple
on the shifting surface of what is.
For a moment,
I considered change—
a flicker of curiosity
pressed against my borders.
But the tired two-step is easier
than learning a new waltz.
Five decades have taught me
to hold familiar hands,
to hum old songs
in a voice steady with habit.
We build walls around ideas here.
I’ve heard the whispers,
felt their pull—
something loose, unformed,
waiting to take shape.
Maybe someday.
But for now,
I keep spinning,
tracing the same worn paces,
letting the dust settle
where it always has.
This poem first appeared in Texas Poetry Assignment, Issue # 78, “Texas Speaks.” Many thanks to Laurence Musgrove for his acceptance and encouragement. I highly recommend exploring his works, especially The Bluebonnet Sutras, available here. Don’t miss the remarkable poets featured at Texas Poetry Assignment.
The sky bends beneath city lights,
its vast quiet fractured—
and yet the hunter emerges,
sharp-edged, unbroken.
Once, he anchored me—
half a world away,
etched into desert winds,
his watchful eyes a tether
to what I could not hold:
home, family, something unnamed.
Time slips, soft as owl’s breath,
years folding into shadows,
a presence felt, unseen,
somewhere at the mind’s edge,
like a promise carved in starlight.
But tonight, I look up;
his belt gleams bright,
as if memory itself
has taken shape in the dark,
steady, silent, unchanging.
It’s good to see you again,
old friend.
Written in response to Sammy’s Weekend Writing Prompt #389: Write a poem or a piece of prose in exactly 99 words using the word “Hunter”.
You come from a long line of survivors—
evident in the fact of your existence.
Your kin endured famine’s grasp,
wars beneath silent stars,
and quakes that fractured the earth.
They braved fire’s fury,
floodwaters that swallowed the land,
scorching droughts, and ages of ice.
They faced monsters in the dark,
plagues that swept through nations,
passing an enduring spirit forward—
until you emerged.
Now you stand in uncertain times,
fearful, yes,
but forged by the fires of endurance,
woven by hands that never yielded.
Your breath is a hymn to resilience.
Stand firm—not because it is easy,
but because this is what you are made for.
What flickers first—
is it sight or thought?
What holds the body’s ache
and also the ache of loss?
What builds the self, brick by brick,
only to watch it dissolve?
And what remains,
but the stillness in which
all things arise and fall?
Written in response to De Jackson’s prompt over at dVerse Poet’s Pub: Quadrille #212 – “What the What?” The challenge this week is to write a poem of exactly 44 words, including some form of the word “what.”
As I walk to my daughter’s bus stop,
carefully avoiding the sidewalk cracks
as I always do,
I remember something my mother once told me.
When she was a young girl, my daughter’s age,
and my grandmother would upset her,
she would go outside
and intentionally jump on the sidewalk cracks.
Soon, when my daughter gets off the bus,
she’ll ask to go to her friend’s house,
and I’ll have to tell her no,
not until her homework is finished.
She’ll be upset with me,
just as my mom was with her mother.
But thankfully, we don’t know any rhymes
aimed at causing spinal trauma to fathers.
This poem was originally published in Kindred Characters, the debut issue of Lark and Owl Booksellers’ literary journal.
So, it turns out that yesterday, December 4th,
was International Cheetah Day.
Who knew?
I missed it, regretfully,
lost in the blur of a day that dashed by.
Had I known, what would I have done to celebrate?
Maybe made a modest donation to the Cheetah Conservation Fund?
Or perhaps something bolder, more intriguing.
I could have strolled casually to the zoo
and gazed at these spotted sprinters,
lazing in poor approximations of vast savannahs,
worlds away from their wild grasslands.
No longer fierce hunters,
but prisoners awaiting meals delivered
at regular intervals through cell doors.
Suddenly, one would approach the glass,
and, glancing around for guards,
I’d lean in close
to share a whispered plot,
a moonlit jailbreak.
His ears might twitch with a spark of hope,
our eyes locked in covert complicity,
as I outline our daring midnight escape.
For a fleeting moment, he’d be captivated,
tail flickering with the thrill of a real run.
But then,
with wisdom in his gaze,
he would silently decline.
Understanding the odds, the reality –
quickly captured again,
certainly sent to solitary,
if not shot on sight in the urban jungle.
I would nod, sadly, place my fist against the glass,
and he, with a furry paw, would do the same,
a gesture of solidarity.
Then, I’d slowly walk away,
a conspirator without a cause,
wishing to offer more than fanciful thoughts,
and desperate daydreams,
on this day dedicated to his species.
This poem was originally published in Kindred Characters, the debut issue of Lark and Owl Booksellers’ literary journal.
The Truth About Tigers 