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
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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.