A New Mayan Calendar + Numbers Poem by Stephen Bunch

This Lawrence writer continues to engage my attention with his wit and finesse. I see mathematics interpenetrating every aspect of my day, and he riffs on this. Thanks to him for writing this and for granting permission to print it here. Stephen Bunch 's new chapbook Preparing To Leave is reviewed at this website, with purchase information from the press:
http://www.thelivesyoutouch.com/touchjournal/Publications/Bunch.html

52

 

A Mayan epoch, cards

in a deck, weeks

in a year, the atomic

weight of chromium,

not the “Korean chrome”

on the straight-eight

Pontiac, not the atomic

weight on Eniwetok,

while Nixon played

Checkers. Eisenhower's

first, Lucy's first, no

lynchings for the first

time since 1882,

but shortly Boeing's

bombers excavating Vietnam,

back to the stone age, ivories

pounded, all the white

notes, shaking that love

shack, baby, the hexagram

that directs, "Keep still, no

blame," shuffle and deal.