Charts

THIS IS A POEM BY CIRILO F. BAUTISTA.

The graphics by which the calculus is borne
to prescribe the signs and pathway of the mind
none can unlock with statistics or bind
to metal currency like fish and corn;
for neither time bomb nor flagman can scorn
the sure numerals the gnomon has signed.
Be a dryad, a glyptic seeing or blind,
the calculus will wound you with its horn:

so fine a machine can demolish the art
we raise against the phalanx it employs,
the human tactics we plot on our chart
melt before its argument like plastic toys
dolmen, alar, crude, tied to the womb like sex,
it is the saviour that comes with an ax.