Le Chagrin du Monde

Lyrics

The diagnosis is German.
As is proper.
Eighteen twenty-seven.
Jean Paul Richter, observing the symptom from his study.
Through glass, naturally.

The window is streaked with rain.
Each drop a lens, distorting the street below.
The schematic in the book shows clean lines, perfect arches.
Utopia, bound in leather.
But the specimen outside…
The brick is chipped. The cobblestones are slick with filth.
A dog limps past, indifferent to its own tragedy.
The grand design, reduced to this damp, grey Tuesday.

And the name for the ache is Weltschmerz.
World-pain.
The agonizing pressure differential between the world as it was drawn,
and the world as it is.
The gap is not a vacuum.
It is a weight.
A dull, systemic infection of the spirit.

The shelves behind me groan with unfinished arguments.
Schopenhauer's hell, Leopardi's cosmic sigh.
All these beautiful, intricate theories of despair.
They stack up like case files.
Evidence of the same recurring pathology.
Humanity, a patient with a terminal case of hope,
presenting with chronic, low-grade disappointment.

And the name for the ache is Weltschmerz.
World-pain.
The agonizing pressure differential between the world as it was drawn,
and the world as it is.
The gap is not a vacuum.
It is a weight.
A dull, systemic infection of the spirit.

One wonders if the flaw is in the glass.
This rain-streaked filter between the eye and the real.
They made a fashion of it, didn't they?
The Byronic posture, the elegant disillusionment.
A self-prescribed malady.
But the fever feels authentic.
The chill is bone-deep.
The world continues its clumsy, heartbreaking performance, whether I watch or not.

The file remains open.
The observation continues.
The rain has not stopped.
Weltschmerz.
The world, sighing.