Tomorrow Rules

When student groups

Procrastinate,

Their feedback loops

Exacerbate

It: first they stress,

Which guarantees

They slumber less,

Then lack of zees

Produces yet

More dallying.

Stats show its threat

Of damaging

Their grades exceeds

All other threats

To study needs

Like student debts

Or angst. What gives?

The emphasis

On negatives

Appears remiss—

The feedback loop

In which they live

With their peer group

Is positive!

 

Mike Mesterton-Gibbons is a Professor Emeritus at Florida State University who has returned to live in his native England. His poems have appeared in Current Conservation, the Ekphrastic Review, Light, Lighten Up Online, the New Verse News, Oddball Magazine, Rat’s Ass Review, WestWard Quarterly and other journals. In 2025 he won the Children’s Unpublished category of the Eyelands Book Awards with Flora’s Flock and Other Stories to Read Aloud. The poem was prompted by the Daily Mirror story “Cristiano Ronaldo: Why Portugal star’s international career looks set to end in chaos.”