Pox Romana

Entropy is a thermodynamic property of all substances that is proportional to their degree of disorder. The greater the number of possible microstates for a system, the greater the disorder and the higher the entropy.

*all attribution at end of poem

.

woke up screaming again last night

what is our world coming to these days

when nothing ever turns out right?

._.

in my dream the universe thinning

galaxies drifting into invisibility

stars burned out, planets disintegrating

the death of all things - maximum entropy

._.

modern fates cruelly sever life’s sacred threads

now that private equity owns everything

no more affordable housing or lifesaving meds

hurtling a lone meteor through time

everything and everyone lost I ever loved

wondering am I the last of my kind

every prayer and petition ignored?

._.

the symbols of decay laying round about

even the nation's reflecting pool

reduced to putrid steaming swamp

._.

tumbling alone head over heels

while every hope within me slowly died

and yet heaven's bells did not peal

nor the last trump give its reckoning cry

perhaps a smelly algae bloom

is in the natural order of things

its disintegration a portent of doom

._.

but as I cried out in solitary despair

awakening with a start and a shout

you touched my shoulder with loving care

and I cast the sheets in frenzy all about

._.

woke up screaming again last night

you comforting, pressed at my side

the dream’s terror still gripped me tight

._.

I cannot live without you, said I, yet fearing

ruthless entropy will have the final say

our prime long past, how might we delay feeling

life’s pulse and meaning fade slowly to gray?

._.

the east wing looks like someone dropped a bomb

perhaps a metaphor for American decline?

Roman gladiators fighting on its lawn

you hugged me in the terrifying dark

the scare lasting till peace I might again know

wishing that death’s wiles we may outsmart

rather than fattening maggots in the earth below

._.

greed and hate transmuted our leaders to frauds

our children's future they blatantly squander

while the world starves, they make enemies abroad

._.

a still small voice called out of life’s haven

together we heard the prophetic word given

for everything there is a season,

and a time for every purpose under heaven

._.

our leaders at the billionaires beck and call

this burden we and our children are forced to bear

everyone knows, they will never pay at all

._.

long lay we awake after the midnight hour struck

hand in hand, a connection only sleep will fray

a time to break down, and a time to build up

a time to keep, and a time to cast away

._.

woke up screaming again last night

Attribution:

LibreTextsTM Quote link: https://chem.libretexts.org/Courses/California_State_University_Chico/General_Chemistry_112/06%3A_Gibbs_Energy_and_Thermodynamics/6.03%3A_Entropy_and_the_Second_Law_of_Thermodynamics

Text also features selected quotes from Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8, Authorized King James Version

Painting: A Golden Thread - 1885, detail; John Melhuish Strudwick, The Tate Gallery, London

Photo: East Wing of the White House after demolition; Pedro Ugarte/AFP via Getty

Author’s notes:

1. Pax Romana translated from the Latin means Roman Peace, a roughly 200-year age from 27 BCE to 180 CE, beginning with the rule of Emperor Augustus. This did not mean an absence of war within the empire but rather a peace maintained through widespread conquest and suppression of revolts.

2. Pox Romana. Although intended as an ironic title referring to American imperial ambitions as a Roman curse, it is also a book by historian Colin Elliott - Pox Romana: The Plague That Shook the Roman World - about the Antonine Plague (c. 165–180 AD), a pandemic that devastated the Roman Empire at its peak of power, marking what some historians believe was the end of the Pax Romana.

3. Crossing the Rubicon. The Rubicon River served as the official northern boundary of Italy. Roman law strictly forbade any general from bringing an armed army across this river, as doing so was considered an act of treason and a declaration of war against the Republic. Julius Caesar broke that law when he crossed it with his legions after his campaigns in Gaul. In the modern day it metaphorically refers to crossing a line of no return.