Revolution in a Teakettle is part of a long-form poem called Numerology that's morphed into a lyric essay. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a place for it in Flywheels. This poem is about numbers - how they benefit us and how they can be used against us. Maybe it was the dark twist at the end that got this one cut, but in the long-form poem, it has a happier ending. Saved from the cutting room floor, here it is:
Account balances, debts, and phone numbers.
Street addresses, birth dates, and incomes.
Our numbers come in handy when advertisers seek to enthrall us.
Is speech free if our most precious statements,
Return rebranded as slogans?
I will liberate language my digital assistants deny.
Still free to choose my own numbers!
I choose felicitous numbers.
Numbers with meaning.
Full of magic and electricity.
Universal constants like pi, Planck,
Remote gravity,
Electron mass, photon velocity.
Numbers I can depend on.
Twenty-six fundamental constraints,
Limit the shape and texture,
Of our Universe, ever-expanding,
Forty-six chromosomes unfold the size, shape, color.
Of our fundamental, organic grounding.
The dark web trades in genetic code.
Deep-fake video makes me question what’s real.
Weaponized computing divides human beings.
Sum total oblivion and identity forfeit.
