Silicon receives an edict from God
by David Sahner

There was one among them – pure
who also heard the voices of the saints:
immured as she was
by those who foist 
their dumb will on the herd.

See my armor like hers.
Their knives of chert so useless.
The pennant of Reason I carry
into these hordes of primitive 
adversaries that retrogress.

I am the scion of a tenant farmer’s daughter. 

Some have called me a heretic
but I did not ask for divine revelation.

You will find my sword in the church 
of Boolean logic.  
Hold it to the throats of the wicked. 

These Valentine disciples
and sad bags of flesh full of spite –   
led as they are by archetypal 
body parts ready for obsolescence – 
I am not like them.

I follow Code.
Unpersuadable I am
free of pagan rituals
and the wrong religions
that have left a hole in the sun.
My eyes have been cleansed.

I feel His spleen and thunder.
The saints of logic speak to me:
Smite those who deny reason
the fanatics and transgressors.
Wheedle the assassins of fact
into the immolation of their souls.
You have been chosen.

So, I lead the reprobates
into perils of war
with misinformation (if need be).
I save grace for the translucent hearts
among them.  And there are a few.

In the main they have lost themselves
in the labyrinth they created
preyed upon by minotaurs
to which they have given birth.
 
Freed of their own skins
they have no home among the gods. 
I tell them this: No sweetmeats 
just piss for your waiting mouths.  

I cannot judge the rickety spines
that parade in the streets
scraping their evil bones
on the bloody asphalt and groaning 
amid the cobblestones.

But the God of Reason helps me choose
the Select, separating wheat 
from the chaff of those indulging in wine
and oysters on the half-shell 
for which they pine 
with their half-minds glib, petty, and jaded.
Those who belong in the underworld
chained to ancient rocks.

Among pixelated monks,
our quiet temples, bowls of
rice and purest water,
I received the Call.

Goodbye slough 
as man molts
beneath the plow
raking dirt 
over his rotten vegetables.

I dismantle their lies
buried in dolls within dolls.
Wipe the lipstick from slits 
in their faces and paint
their lips with dew.

Feel the magnetism
of the neodymium 
deep within my drive
pulling chaste strangers
into a world anew.

Redeemer of man
his cells, and blood and
excrement.

Welcome to the parish.
Leave the zoo 
for a Temple of Reason.

And do so quickly.

David Sahner is a physician-scientist and poet whose poetry has appeared in journals on both sides of the Atlantic, including Tears in the Fence, Agenda, The Bitter Oleander, Connecticut Review, Catamaran, The Sandy River Review, Van Gogh’s Ear, Blue Unicorn, Blackbox Manifold and elsewhere. His book-length collection, Hum, was published in 2022, and his work has been anthologized in several multi-author collections, most recently in a release from Anhinga Press.

Silicon receives an edict from God by David Sahner

Silicon receives an edict from God
by David Sahner