Toska

A morning call somewhere far below,

Hollow and a frightening mess.

A cloud appears above your head,

And then your walls undress.

There’s a pompous rat

Wriggling to be free.

Try to scurry past defenses,

But defenses are futile, they are weak.

It’s a steady hymn lilting through,

A passion it has become.

While others associate it with the color blue,

You have come undone.

Mondays, afternoons, in the dead of the night,

It chooses no time to follow you.

Then auspiciously it takes flight,

With a promise to return to you.

What is it? ‘tis a mystery.

A mystery or a misery,

A riddle or something morbidly messy,

Never laugh, it is never funny.

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Toska (Russian)

- “No single word in English renders all the shades of toska. At its deepest and most painful, it is a sensation of great spiritual anguish, often without any specific cause. At less morbid levels it is a dull ache of the soul, a longing with nothing to long for, a sick pining, a vague restlessness, mental throes, yearning. In particular cases it may be the desire for somebody of something specific, nostalgia, love-sickness. At the lowest level it grades into ennui, boredom.”