Poetry

God Lite

John Whitworth

 

We don’t do God. We’ve got big numbers now.

The magic zeros replicate for ever

Their demonstration of the why and how

We have cleansed our church of God, being so clever

The mysteries prove unmysterious:

Hell’s bells, the mines of sulphur, flames and flails,

Devils with forks and fangs—can you be serious?

We need no tolerance for fairy tales;

Our world goes way, way back, a zillion zillion

Years. And these days there’s our First XI

Of Scientific Cracks in the pavilion

Determined to engage the Host of Heaven.

Armed to the teeth with figures, facts and fossils,

We’ll devastate His Angels and Apostles.