Issue 3:1 | Featured Artist | Jon Hounshell

Prince Albert
Jon Hounshell

Some of these hills

Weren’t made for habitation

But the clapboard castles rose,

Perched upon the sun-starved slopes

And deep ravines.

The soil

They toiled

Prince Albert

North Sea

And the Marlboro Man.

Somewhere between the rocks

Man made the meek plantations

And the cash crop leaflets grew

Like the olive shoots

Around his table.

Sage

Sky-gazer

The harbor-bound handsome one

Chicken

And the constant joy of his mandolin,

But the fledgling branch,

Vive Le Roi,

Weaned while the world

Went down into shadows

Would sire the dream

I’d dig up from the sand

Where once my uncle posed, stooped

And I’ll plant it again

Where my grandfather dug in his heels.

for my grandfather,  April 6, 2002