C Rowan Hawthorn

End Of Old New World

Many of us
Descendants
Of the first Plague Ship
Preacher gods
The penal colony
Clear Clutter
Mercenaries
Shooting buffalo
From trains
Trafficking
In tearing
At the ground
As if
All veins
Shine gold
Or silver
Or bleed
Black 
Here we are
Traversing paths
Worn into the dirt
By deer
Paved now
No water to
Soften
The sun's
Overlong kiss
Fire & dust
Walking through
Battlefield air
Walking
Through ash &
Broken treaties
The bed
Grandparents
Thrice great &
Long dead, made
Thrice great
Never
Never
Never great
There are already
Bones
Here
Burned & ground
To powder
We built our houses 
On top of them
We're breathing
Their last
Will & Testament
Right now
Our lungs
Cemetery caves
Filled with
All the dead
We killed

Apocalypse Hope

I was watching
A recording of an online
Stream for
History Students
&
After
A whole talk about
White Power Terrorists
Their movements
Favorite magazine
Favorite slogans &
Myths
Of course
The Apocalypse
Came up
That word
Specifically
Apocalypse
Without Rapture
But
Funny enough
This was a segue
Into
The guest historian's
Next book
The Apocalypse
Was her next project
With little time
Spent on Race War
Nonsense
She
Perked up
Eyes bright behind
Fashionable glasses
Apocalypse
Or
Post-Apocalypse
How we survive
How we rally
And go on
She
Is interested
Moved, emotionally
& wants
To understand
Isn't it wonderful
That maybe,
No matter what,
That's how
We roll 
After
An Apocalypse?
We rally
& take care
Of each other?
No Rapture
But maybe
Ruin
Regression
Restoration
Reinvention
I wonder if her
Research
Will
Bear that out?
I'm still thinking
About it
About cracked earth highways
Crashed grids
Newly revealed night skies
Over silhouettes of trees
& black shadow cities
Dead networks
Live feeds
Radio waves
I suspect
The historians
Are thinking, too
Of Ragnarok battles
Of Rainbow warnings
Remembered as
Promises
Follow
Twine
From tree
To tree
Sigil
Cave
To cave
The stars
Will
Show
The way 
There
We rally

***

C Rowan Hawthorn is a writer & avid coffee drinker on the North Coast of California. She keeps her college degree from UC Berkeley in a folder & periodically loses it. She & her husband have multiple unfinished stories scribbled on cardboard boxes & matchbooks. They rearrange them for fun. Quarantine life mostly suits her just fine. She likes the quiet.