Poetry Of Evil: The Mental Health Poetry Podcast

Episode 002: Sorrow In The Body

Welcome to the Poetry of Evil: place where mental health intersects with poetry. I’m your host and the author of these poems, Daniel Viragh. It’s a beautiful night, in Vancouver, British Columbia, and I am so glad that you are joining us, from near or far away.

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Tonight we will look at three poems that describe what it’s like to struggle with mental health issues. Taken together, these poems show both the sorrow that accumulates in our joints and sinews, but also, how it is essential to keep going on.

The first poem is called “I Have Nothing To Give,” and it’s from “At The End of My Travels”

I have nothing to give, save my breath and my faith:
take this broken body.
I’ve travelled everywhere,
but was nowhere present.

I’ve talked to a million strangers;
I don’t know their names from their faces.
But when you come to me, I remember.
I used to be a child, once. I had feelings.
I was awake.

You teach me to reconnect the dots.
To reassemble, what was shattered.
To have the courage to face,
those people I’ve left behind.

You teach me that solitude is not the only answer;
you help me to give; you help me to grieve.
Sometimes, I wonder, why it is,
that our paths have crossed.
Shouldn’t we have met so long ago?

I feel like a child again,
sauntering amongst the lilies.
You help me to live.
You help me to give.

Tonight’s second poem is called “I Know” and it’s from “Buddha’s Broken Fingernail”.

I know, that you’re tired; I know, that you’re anxious;
I know, that your tolerance is low.
I know, that you’re angry; I know, that you’re weeping;
I know, that your mother left you, long ago.

I see how this world conspires to ruin you;
how it just seethes, with crime and with sin.
I know that to see and to feel it, within you,
means the poison starts working within.

But think of the millions who need this, your message;
think of those without the power of voice;
think of the lonely, of the asthmatic, of the stolen;
think of those, who have no choice.

Heed then, their sorrow, their questionable allegiance;
give them at least, some hope with which to bear
the rancid, the gory, the traumatic and the hollow:
the voice that is strong is the one that is near.

And finally, tonight’s third poem is called “Give Me Back My Body,” and it’s from “The Womb,” which just appeared last year.

Give me back my body
the way it was, at twenty-three;
give me back my hunger;
give me, immortality.

Give me back my plastic surgeon;
make me live like Joan of Arc;
give me life and bullets and ammunition;
give me the Torah and its Ark.

Give me freedom from communion;
give me, Beauty and the Beast;
give me war, and peace, and liberation;
it's all worthless, once you've been released.

Give me sex and crackheads and coke;
and give me your stupid vaccine, whatever the fuck its name;
give me honesty and retribution;
give me, someone else to blame.

Give me crime, and give me thugs,
and give me all the President's men;
give me Brahms and give me Schubert;
just don't say, we ever need to meet again.

I'm not saying, I never wanna see ya;
all I'm saying is that our time is up;
whatever once was, was there to greet ya;
it's all down now by the bottom of your paper cup.

Thank you so much for listening! It’s been a wonderful pleasure to share these meditations with you.

This podcast is meant as a collaborative community, where people can comment on the poems, submit poems of their own, and share their own mental health journeys. So please visit us at poetryofevil.com. We take your privacy seriously, and this is a safe space for you to share.