{"id":137990619,"date":"2025-11-18T08:58:19","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T14:58:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/?p=137990619"},"modified":"2025-11-18T08:58:19","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T14:58:19","slug":"even-futile-arguments-can-inspire-poetry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/even-futile-arguments-can-inspire-poetry\/","title":{"rendered":"Even Futile Arguments Can Inspire Poetry"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Good Night, Sisyphus<\/h2>\n<pre class=\"poem\">I\u2014who once believed we could achieve\r\nthat ideal world if only we weren't stuck within,\r\n     content with,\r\n          benefitting from\r\n               the status quo\u2014\r\nconcede. Tap out. Exhausted, all my arguments\r\nare spent, they lie in tatters, bloodied whispers\r\n     schoolyard taunts,\r\n          the sticks and stones\u2014\r\n               bones flogged \r\nacross a futile battlefield. I haven't breath \r\nenough to launch a fresh attack. You win\u2014\r\nknocked the wind right out of me, and I\r\nadmit that this is how it's ever been.\r\nI never wanted change\r\n     for sake of change but clinging\r\n          to old ways, old enmities,\r\n               some need \r\nfor one to lose while others win\r\nhas brought us to this place where hope's\r\n     laid waste.\r\n          I will dig its grave\r\n               with bare hands\r\nyour proffered shovel is too tempting.\r\nFor now, I look across a timeline \r\n     stretch of years\r\n          that vanish\r\n               on a cold horizon -\r\ntarry blacktop glistens in the sun. I set\r\nmy weary feet to walking towards\r\n     a dying star\r\n          keep walking\r\n               towards the silence\r\ntill familiar noise and heat come raging\r\ntowards the last of us, incinerating all.<\/pre>\n<hr>\n<p>Today&#8217;s a new day. No planet-killing event ended us in our sleep. Another chance to get it right, but I am pessimist enough to be 100% certain that we won&#8217;t &#8211; not today, not in my lifetime, and maybe never. You might think this was written to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.writersdigest.com\/2025-november-pad-chapbook-challenge-day-1\">today&#8217;s prompt from Robert Brewer<\/a>, but it&#8217;s not &#8211; I started it yesterday. Maybe later I&#8217;ll try a more optimistic take, but for now, I just thank Chris A. for helping me see how utterly futile idealism is, even when it is glued like a boulder to the soul.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Idealism can be a curse, but pessimism is probably worse. What can you do?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":137990620,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_has_post_settings":[],"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,7],"tags":[],"hashtags":[],"class_list":["post-137990619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry","category-writing"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-11 07:41:03","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137990619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137990619"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137990619\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":137990621,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137990619\/revisions\/137990621"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137990620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137990619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137990619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137990619"},{"taxonomy":"hashtags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jahangiri.us\/2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtags?post=137990619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}