Notes About The Poem

Old wooden tables warp when wet

Note: The rule of entropy means that to takes energy and effort to create order from disorder. But the rules of the universe tends to maximize disorder which is the equilibrium state. This means that order is a high energy state that decays effortlessly to disorder which is the equilibrium state. The energy released from dissembling order can be used. Animals feed on negative entropy, extracting energy by converting organic molecules (order) into carbon dioxide and water (disorder). Plants extract energy from sunlight and use it to synthesise carbohydrates and other organic molecules (imparting order) from carbon dioxide, oxygen and water (disorder). Decay is inevitable, and unstoppable. Much of our effort to build and sustain order is inevitably wasted.

 

Listen to poem:

Warped Skew-Whiff

The jug spilt water, wetting the table
Now bent, twisted, buckled and warped skew-whiff
By flaw to twist coiled within the fibers
when timber dried, planed, sanded and dressed smooth.
How cruel for the carpenter who toiled
to make the table top lined-up and square
For the owner of the table so proud.
For the child who toppled the jug over.
Fatal flaw hidden within the fibers
coiled, primed and wound, waiting to be unleashed
By an event bound to happen one day.
For nothing here is insusceptible,
in a world ruled by entropy’s decay,
where order is a high energy state
and disorder is equilibrium.

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23 June 2017
Copyright © | Year Posted 2017

Poem

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June 22, 2017 at 5:44 PM
Very deep stuff, John. Well written poem and very interesting topic.
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