Best Entropy Poems
I dreamed I was inside a bulb—
a cathedral of filament and glass—
not dead
not born…..
but shumming**.
Glass walls curved like time
sealed but translucent
my fingers curled around voltage
like a secret
God was transcending.
The socket hummed a lullaby
of static.
Every breath of mine made sparks
the air electric
with grief
and longing.
I saw myself outside the bulb
in a room wallpapered with eyes—
each iris twitching
like a seismograph.
They watched
as I shimmered like an angel
in a jar of fire
as if I were proof
of something
too holy
or too hideous
to name.
The room beyond
glistened with wallpapered surveillance—
each gaze a blink
each blink
a test of identity
a hymn of entropy
and wonder.
I touched the glass—
cool as frozen memory
thin as a promise—
and the world on the other side
shuddered
like a dream woken
too soon
My thoughts turned tungsten—
spiraled
stubborn
resisting
the spark of enlightenment
or extinction
I spoke
and the words bent back
like boomerangs
buzzing
with static regret
A child approached
barefoot
real
impossibly tender…..
She looked like someone
I might have loved
if time had taken pity.
She placed her palm on the bulb—
her skin against my sorrow
the warmth of it
startling
as mercy
a forgiveness.
“Why are you in there?”
she asked
or perhaps
thought—
her voice the color
of candlelight.
I tried to answer
but my vocal cords was hardwired
my tongue
a fuse
My words came back
distorted
looped
charred
as if language
were combustible.
For a moment
I flickered
between purpose
and obliteration
Then
the ceiling cracked open
like a wound
and light poured down—
not to reveal
like revelation
like judgment—
to burn away
the questions
And I understood—
not everything illuminated
is meant to be seen
not all vision
is freedom…..
Some truths
are meant to flicker
fragile and holy
inside the bulb of the soul
unspoken
unchosen
alive.
================
**Shumming: Shimmering Humming
Order gives way
To disorder
I look at my reflection
In the mirror
And believe every word.
W.A CHOLT. Copyright Fergal O Reilly. 2018.
I was born in a spoken Word
a universe of infinitesimally low entropy
energy and matter
pressed into order
incredibly dense
God breathed
Since that first compression
I have been sliding
toward indifference
toward equilibrium
and yet your existence remains
statistically staggering
You are temporary whirlpools
in my river of chaos
the bloom of a flower
the warmth of a coffee cup
the span of a human life
beautiful because they are
fleeting states
of disequilibrium
You live in the pinprick window
between my highly ordered beginning
and my ultimate stillness
the Heat Death
where every particle
surrenders
its last difference
You call it paradox
that life seems to break my rules
but life does not break
the Second Law
it discovers
the loophole within me
the narrow passage
between collapse
and creation
You intercept sunlight
like a waterwheel
catching a waterfall
performing thermodynamic work
building order
from my downhill slide
But there is no free lunch
to create a pristine room
you must sweat
breathe heavily
radiate heat
you make the room ordered
and the air around you
more disordered
Life does the same
on a grander scale
to keep your body
your brain
your memories
in a state of low entropy
you consume
transform
and return
chaos
back into the room
You pay me
an entropy tax
you become
a masterpiece of order
only because you turn
your surroundings
into a stadium of disorder
faster than they would decay
on their own
You are temporary
stardust
golden
brilliant knots
tied in my fraying rope
tight only because
energy continues
to pass through you
And still
after knowing
the fate of stars
after hearing
the silence waiting
at the edge of time
you plant gardens
ENTROPHY
Entropy says that matter can't last
As energy holds it together.
But as we go down, fighting the last
I hope that just one little feather
Sticks to the side of whatever's left over
A bale of cotton, a field of clover.
It's not that it matters it's me that it flatters
So long as some semblance weathers.
A dignified statesman,
A deified ‘Godman,’
A glorified star (of films or sports)
All tumble—
After a Starr report
Or an HIV test
Or a dope test.
Or maybe a Watergate
Or a Coalgate.
Media reports or media hype?
Whistle blowers
On whistle blowers—ad infinitum.
God and my God are antithetical?
Is rape the norm—
Where Rama and Sita are worshipped?
Whatever your belief,
Call it Postmodern Era
Or Kali Yuga
Or what you will,
Will entropy be the norm?
— Ram., R. V.
An unavoidable state is the disorder
of entropy
Cosmic matter is hurtling there with
unseemly velocity
All heavenly bodies seen in the galaxy
Have a date with entropy historically
Entropy is working even for you
When the mirror confirms lines more
than a few
Entropy has a place for each cosmic
speck
The horse called Gravity is the purveyor
on the trek
In time all will be tossed in a black hole,
atoms to rearrange
Where endless recycling begins
into another Big Bang
The older I get
The weaker and slower
And more tired I get
(with, from, of)
And the less I care
(about, for, to).
When I was younger
I guess I saw this coming,
At least I saw it in old people,
But I never thought it would happen to me.
Now here it is
And I don’t really care.
I suppose it’s a natural process of entropy,
But I’m not sure I want to assign myself
Completely to the confines
Of a thermodynamic system,
Yet it may be just as simple as that.
But then again
The older I get
The easier it gets
To see that I am not
Just this body.
Sure, this body means a lot
And takes a lot of attention
But it is still,
As worn and tired as it may be,
Just my current vehicle.
Sooner or later
I’ll be needing a new one,
But I’m in no rush,
I still care enough
About, for, to this one.
(10/31/24)
I have measured the math of a mustard seed,
traced the geometry of origin,
the angles of mercy,
run fingers over the ridges of history
and found Him—
in carbon’s conspiracy,
in gravity’s governance,
in Fibonacci’s stubborn insistence on beauty.
Do you not see—
faith is not blind;
it is sight through the fog,
a reaching…
And now—
see yourself.
The burden you carried like iron mail
slides from your shoulders
as if it was never meant to stay.
Your hands tremble.
Your lips part.
And through the crack in your voice,
You say—
*"I was wrong."*
A new day dawns…
It was another grey stone winter.
Menacing Queen Beira terrorized the countryside.
We traveled the winding cobblestone way,
the grey stone winter way.
We believed in anything to get us through the murk,
anything to overlook our disintegration.
We sought patterns, convictions, decrees within the chaos
until all our candles blew out.
We believed in believing and we thought it worked,
so it must have.
When the Queen ended her wrath, we felt the warm balm
of spring restoring our faith in life and order
but the second law of thermodynamics was not reversible.
Our animated order of life expended more energy,
By delaying decay we paradoxically tended toward it,
Like snakes, we shed our skins,
transforming, reforming until death.
The impressions lingering from our consciousness
seek new venues,
we know not the dimensions of these new spectral landscapes.
Not created, not destroyed, our energy transcends
only by the menacing queen.
theorizes, surmises, realizes, outlandish notions
manifesting jibberish inside frangible egghead,
especially when attempting tip ply words struggling
to describe abstract whims fed
by fancy, groovy, heady indefinable
mind boggling ideas they weigh like a led
zeppelin inside gray matter squeezed
to the max like a sponge dark red
when saturated with near incomprehensible
thought processes that attempt to shed
light on cosmic principles, yet lack
mathematical familiarization wed
did with advanced studies in astrophysics (trace
sing pinball erratic mental reverberations
leaves me stupified about mysteries of space
time continuum, quantum mechanics,
and even how my existence came about
since the presence of human race
whereat random
evolutionary circumstances took place
on planet (un) fit Earth analogous
to skien woven of sateen lace
via some invisible hand weaving
world wide webbed warp and sub woof
fur wrought primordial miracles
ranked (within schema by human primates)
as zen amazingly grace
full promenade,
per multivarious species, now one Janus face
sing self destruction duet hoo
weapons of mass destruction can erase
entire range comprising terresrial biota
unable to escape original weeknd update
with Jane Curtain, and Chevy Chase,
and according to Stephen Hawking the base
sic global web spun via *****Sapiens
will lose role as topdog
ousted from twittering, spotifying reddit queue
over stayed plenti potentiary pinnacle,
oracle outlook netzero for mankind as ace
forced to relinguish role,
sans self anointed supreme beast
(what a beauty this bipedal hominid),
whose surging population didst increased
the process toward total vaporous xfinity zapped –
frankly tubby sub letted and leased
to another organism
not needing tubby policed.
Touch is fleeting, never a foot hold.
Warmth succumbs to growing old's cold.
Value lies unfounded, hidden in treasure's chest.
For life's obsession is driven by mementos' quest.
Gold that glitters, when buried, fades decays to dust.
All structure and order is dismembered by entropy's thrust.
Unable to sleep or pray, I stand
by the window looking out—
at moonstruck trees a December storm
has bowed with ice.
White Oaks and Maples concede
beneath the crystalline weight,
their branches falling brittle upon
a frozen tableau of memory.
Love—that old revolutionary road,
veers sideways toward scrutiny;
where I've wandered, reliving moments
at the long junction of unease.
But make no mistake—
The trees themselves, as in winters past
will endure their burdening; broken thrive.
Am I less to You, my God, than they?
What does this have to do with love?
I shatter a mirror just to glimpse
the shifting umbra that lurks behind,
searching for the source of wholeness.
I hear it—the mutability of love in stead,
its voice, cutting a swath through leavings;
worn, blessed, shaped by earth
while rising out of what was lost.
I pull thread by thread, at memories lost,
as if to weave them back together;
but each attempt reveals the tear
in every promise once coveted.
Is love then, nothing but a gap—
a space we fill with longing,
a promiscuous fire lost in the cold
leaving us searching for its light?
The trees, staunch, their silence deep,
and in their forboding, I see more
than in the frantic rush of hearts—
they bend and splinter yet carry forth.
Love is not the comfort we expect,
rather the oscillating tension
that reveals even in ruination, there
is life's will stirring in the dark.
Energy found its way through the rigorous
rigamarole of trial and error of those persistent
like the Wright Brothers, the Curies, or Thomas
Edison, and others. The close failures were consistent.
At the time, based on their hypothesis
that it will benefit all living-kind existent.
Yet they were all clueless to the vigorous
negativity that their inventions will be hell-bent.
The electric chair, countless deaths by accidental
electrocution, then the military plane that dropped
the atomic bombs, first on Hiroshima's citadel
by using devices onboard for their best opt
to maximize deaths. Also, Nagasaki being critical.
The Atomic bombs were both propped
with radioactive properties that were essential.
Ergo, good and bad are clarified when mopped.
Since the beginning of human history,
entropy played a significant part
that affected borderlines, racial sophistry
another open flesh wound of the heart
as fanatism occupied and warped the symmetry
of religion and segregates, faiths impart
brained the clueless first via chemistry
until Tsar Bomba took the chart.
The atmospheric conditions are codependent
with temperature. Barometric condition affects
weather and health that are both consistent
as one trails a single value that projects
air quality being as effective and existent
ergo, temperature gauges the fall and rise as subjects
and cannot separate themselves as self-dependents
so they're not polarized, but affectionate objects.
A preposterous venture to entertain as the last phase
of the Three Laws. The First and Second Laws were
easily fathomed, yet the Third, like dots in a maze
became blank when they didn't link keeping the stir
as the only constant having left my mind in a haze
being kerfuffle and not stifled, the informed concur
casting doubts as temperature measures my mind strays
returns a better me. I deduced 'twas by an amateur.
First Law: Energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed or transferred (conservation of energy).
Second Law: Entropy, a measure of disorder, always increases in a closed system.
Third Law: As the temperature of a system approaches absolute zero, the entropy of the system approaches a constant minimum.
I chose "NFC", Not For Contest, due to my drawn conclusion, sadly truth became the judge.
the certain concept of heading into the void
can't help but get me a little annoyed
the assertion that
"if you're not part of the solution,
you're part of the precipitate"
is one with which I can easily relate
falling out, as it were -
from life's certainty of solution
to devolve into entropic resolution
- is chaotic at best
we are, after all in the best years
of our lives, and the future is bound
to look back to now - and agree
you're waaay prettier than you'll be
a couple of eons or epics from now
just some dust blowing in some Kansas wind
if Kansas is even around in the future then
with you're progeny sayin'
"you haven't been yourself for awhile now"
chances are somewhat improbable that -
you, in fact will never be again
S = k·log W
© Goode Guy 2012-08-06
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Boltzmann S = k·log W
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_(order_and_disorder)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_(information_theory)
A grain of sand in the desert of my life,
my mind stores you in dunes,
in overwhelming abundance.
I create winds, sandstorms, tornadoes.
to shape you, to move you,
still, you settle the same,
with mathematical precision.
Governed by physical law,
governed by bleeding and raw,
governed, I want you more,
I feel you slip from my grasp ,
like the grains of sand in my mind,
I wait for a deluge, a torrent,
a hope to bring new life,
new form, a change,
an awakening.
A forgotten seed,
and
the
rain
would
find
you.