Repetitive Questions

Is this ache merely cynicism setting in,
Or has the whole world turned surly and vile?
Has friendship become an outdated notion?
Is backstabbing now the main means of promotion?
I long to encounter a pleasantish someone,
An unknown eager to be a known,
But every stranger has suspicions,
And every familiar is trending strange.
Diogenes' lamp has guttered out,
And in the darkness he stumbles about,
Trips over fragments of bile-coated bone
And hears forlorn echoes from graveyard souls.
Is there hope for the outcasts cast out of Cockaigne,
Driven into perpetual night and despair?
Pardon these riddles; I should work on a prayer.