Writers Are Gods Here

Writers Are Gods Here

by Timothy Tarkelly

There are coffee shops in Kansas
and bookstores, too.
In little town libraries,
we heft real books
and dog-ear famous pages
as they do in other timezones.
Pretentious pricks quote Pynchon
with east-coast ease
and chests puffed on something
we don’t even grow here,
but are fed in streamed doles
because their magazines won’t ship
to our doorsteps.
Writers are gods here,
as long as their zip codes read
like a language we recognize,
but don’t actually understand.
The homegrown, the sunflower sages
are perpetually, permanently
canonized wannabes
that prefer these cold, Midwestern shoulders
to New York deities
who never hear our prayers,
and never even say thank you.

Timothy Tarkelly is a poet from Hays, Kansas. His poetry has been published by Paragon Journal, Whisper and the Roar, Cauldron Anthology, Lycan Valley Press, Fourth & Sycamore, Aphelion, and Poets and War. He currently works for a non-profit that serves survivors of domestic and sexual violence.

WRITERS ARE GODS HERE first appeared in the 2018 issue of From the Depths.