Blank and empty, heads will reel
Success beckons patriotic appeal
A society stamps a robust seal
To flood and scuttle boats!

Success fills a blank page
With a flood of vitriolic rage
Shouted from a high-street stage
Robust to never fall

Firing blanks, march in time
A robust claim of social decline
Protest success in the migrant line
Fist-floods fuel the fire

A see-saw balance of success
Flood the streets under robust stress
No one wants to be second-best
Blankly shouting slogans

Robust walls; dismantle bricks
A blank slate for new party tricks
Flooding Facebook for the clicks
Success, just another Like away

Submitted to Ovi Poetry Challenge 61: success, Word of the Day Challenge – flood, Ragtag Daily Prompt – blank and Weekly Prompts Wednesday Challenge – robust. Loosely inspired by discussion around the purpose and usefulness of protests in the Western world.

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Today I’m feeling:

Not too bad after a reasonable and long sleep.

I still have a cough coming from the centre of my chest but generally feeling physically better. I will try to get back to exercise again tomorrow morning.

Health:

Physical: 7
Mental: 7

Today I’m grateful for:

Finding my favourite crunchy berry muesli at Big C on the way home from work. It seemed cheaper than usual too.

The best thing about today was:

I enjoyed the look of disbelief on the faces of one of my grade-8 classes this afternoon when I told them that they would have to go and record a conversation with a random student from the other grade-8 class. Now, suddenly, they are realising that others will see their ability and skill level.

What was out of your control today and how did you handle it?

I was all set for a surprise class with my grade 12 English students, where we would watch the Quiet Night In video but after setting it all up and getting them to write out all the questions in preparation the connection with the projector suddenly stopped working. I spent about 25 minutes trying to sort it before giving up and apologising.

I went downstairs and plugged it in and it was working again. Argh! It’s happened a few times recently and I think it has something to do with the USB-C adaptor playing up so after some coffee resuscitation I went off the Central to spend 2000 baht, that I can’t afford, on a new one. I also ordered just a cheap VGA adaptor online and will try not to open the expensive one unless absolutely necessary. If I get things up and running again with the cheap one then I’ll take the other back for a refund.