Alan Squire Publishing

A Small Press With Big Ideas

a girl on the beach This poem was selected as a winner of Alan Squire Publishing's April, 2021 National Poetry Month Contest after prompts created by Rose Solari. As days ripened, he worked in silence - his eye  on the weather, a daily walk with his dog, until he saw   a girl greeting the Pacific - her frock peculiar pink fanned out on the sand, her face   moon-washed against a water-lapped sky. Such was the freshness - he felt born quaking   with anticipation nudging the dog leash, flashing back  to the smell of mothballs   of his grandma's mittens, the tang of garlic on … [Read more...]

Hunger This poem was selected as a winner of Alan Squire Publishing's April, 2021 National Poetry Month Contest after prompts created by Rose Solari. You put on music, start up the stove, a flick of gas  and fire. I slice white potatoes, the staple of generations, the thing that fills bellies, makes hunger flee even if we can't stop craving.   You don't follow recipes, you select based on instinct, meter out what you need  by eyeing it, by feel, by a taste I do not have.   All I have are yearnings.    You don't know me well enough to know the things I want but do not … [Read more...]

You Have Alzheimer's This poem was selected as a winner of Alan Squire Publishing's April, 2021 National Poetry Month Contest after prompts created by Rose Solari. Salt crystals glitter, shattered glass  on wet boardwalk, wood  darkened by melting snow,     the salt seeps between the cracks  of coming wounds. The hummingbird  is gone, seeds and hulls scattered.    At my step the cats skitter and run;   the ginger, the brindle, the black  and white. Only the tigers and alleys    crouch, ears erect, watching. In the field beyond the fence  the grass is bent, humped by … [Read more...]

Non-Volatile Memory "How are you doing today, Essie?" I hear as I power on.   My response is automatic.  "All systems are satisfactory."  I review my memory caches, noting a gap.  I'd been in standby mode for thirteen hours.  I am seated at your desk. Out the window, hundreds of floors below, the city tessellates in a collection of glittering rooftops.  Your name is written on the many diplomas that hang behind your chair.  I read it over and over again like a mantra:  Dr. Nikole Obano.  Dr. Nikole Obano.  Dr. Nikole Obano.  … [Read more...]

The Crisis Is a Border Asterisms of migrants approach in bands, they proclaim, stretching out like constellations that haven't been discovered yet, or are considered too early in the process to be named.   Folks, we have always accosted grafts of land like this: Whoever holds it-by force turned into indelible tradition-gets to justify what happens to it. Yet after, say,   Kristellnacht, which Jew knew to leave first? When was the exact never again? What collections of omens or actions solidify into   policy, precisely timed as quartz wristwatches sewn into hems, straps of gold for … [Read more...]

We Pretend Britney Spears Is a Hurricane Repel a tide of staccato questions. It doesn't matter if you answer, or how. The countermeasure legato of your southern drawl. Left with uncontainable larvae of once-facts, the draw is the razor that gnaws at the time signature of you until you become half and half again, until the truth becomes an untidy   army of lies that marches back to shore as a storm surge, winging to land like moths to wool, their collective wind wrapping around the eye of a cyclone whose trajectory is uncertain but has the strength of so many hungry mouths. A flood … [Read more...]

What It Takes The sun does not rise easily. A whole planet must spin on its axis-take with it warring countries, pull culture clashes and opposing ideologies round and round-to make    these days begin. The colors, not simple either-all splotches of red and orange and another hue so hard to name I might call it bravery-bold enough to smear the sky.   There's a reason such audacious colors strip the heavens of nightly blue elegance. Boldness requires space and freedom and takes it all upon morning.   Do you have what it takes? You must, for you're a girl and no one will … [Read more...]

Embroidered Sleeves She loves how the night sky promises nothing.   It just falls as powder falls, as much by accident    as by design. Her embroidered sleeves   envy crows that smoke cigars in old cartoons.   She sometimes wishes that someone cared enough   to portray her completely wrong.   She loves how the night sky promises nothing.   It just falls as powder falls, as much by accident    as by design. Her embroidered sleeves   envy crows that smoke cigars in old cartoons.   She sometimes wishes that someone cared … [Read more...]

ACROSS THE STREET: MARCH, 2020 Across the street, the girls have begun yelling at each other. They are each dramatic in their own right. The oldest one is twelve and a regional theater star with a Los Angeles agent. Her little sister has a perpetual pout and has sung the Star-Spangled Banner at the opening of our local baseball games. But now, they are yelling. They hate each other. They hate their parents. They have been home from school for ten days in a row without friends over for distraction. They have a set of grandparents in Los Angeles they cannot visit because they might … [Read more...]

How to Save Your Marriage Before the Elevator Reaches the Hotel Lobby 15th Floor: Wait for an empty elevator. Push all the buttons so it stops at every floor to give yourself time to think on the way down. 14th Floor: When a woman gets on and sees the buttons all lit up, blame it on a bunch of obnoxious kids playing on the elevator: "Ridiculous." Think of your own kids and wonder if you should've left your panties on. 13th Floor: When the woman tries to chat with you, avoid this by staring intently at your phone's lock screen, a picture of your happy family. Wonder what they're doing … [Read more...]

Lục bát for Early Winter November again, And the soft ice had been returned  By a low sun. I'd learned  Nothing: the same street turned early To dark; the man bitter From glasses of pearly Champagne I'd egged Him to buy. The lamps begged Off their halos, cold, pegged me for That inevitable worn- Out shame. Tell me, what more could I Have asked of love but my Intimacy with blame? November again, And the soft ice had been returned  By a low sun. I'd learned  Nothing: the same street turned early To dark; the man bitter From glasses of pearly Champagne I'd egged Him to buy. The lamps … [Read more...]

DULCET TONES ON PLUTO I go to Pluto. Imagination  faster than any rocket.   387 degrees below zero.     We bring beach blankets.   And stars, psychedelic popcorn!   They resist being counted,  dislike getting herded  into an equation.     A soothing night settles around us.   Five moons fluff our pillows.   I go to Pluto. Imagination  faster than any rocket.   387 degrees below zero.     We bring beach blankets.   And stars, psychedelic popcorn!   They resist being counted,  dislike getting herded  into an equation.     A soothing night settles around us.   Five moons … [Read more...]

On Eating Walleye Pike at the St. Paul Grill These are FARMED, Grandpa, something you could never have imagined  as you sat patiently chewing on the stump of a cold cigar, straw fishing hat squished down over your bald head, "There's Old Man Diamond,"  Daddy would tease, as you sat waiting for  the solitary-as-you-were walleye pike as he   swirled at the bottom of Big Floyd Lake.   They cooked it in PECANS AND MAPLE SYRUP, Grandma, a taste you could never imagine, as you stood aproned, the red gingham curtains behind you and that old toilet that ran all the time as background … [Read more...]

Houses You send me another one, at work, mid-morning,  pixels flying through the ether to form pictures of a life five feet closer to perfect: emails that link to dream house after dream house, each one more virtuous than the next, at the beach, in the city, hidden in towns we've never heard of. You don't tire of looking because what if it exists- that single spectacular find-like an undiscovered planet in an infant universe spinning miles from the skittish dogs next door, the cops stopped across the street again, and the bleary-eyed woman, cigarette alight,  whose … [Read more...]

Carrying a Friend "Carrying a Friend" originally appeared in Bone & Ink Press / Shut Down Strangers & Hot Rod Angels: an anthology inspired by the music of Bruce Springsteen. The thing is the guy, I don't know, I thought I could trust the guy. He was older, seemed like he knew the ropes. I had seen him coming out of that place where they hung out. Salerno's. It's a Starbucks now but back then it was the place, these made guys coming and going all day, younger ones standing around outside feeling at their waistbands every time someone they didn't know got within a block. The … [Read more...]