Poetry Of Evil: The Mental Health Poetry Podcast

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. Be sure to visit poetryofevil.com for all of your evil poetic needs, including:
- transcripts of the poems
- ways to comment on the material, and submit your own material
- and (of course) our store.

Tonight, we will look at trauma histories: specifically, poems which talk about how trauma is passed from generation to generation.

The first poem thus is a meditation on the fictional town of Luminberg and on the Holocaust. Many survivors of the Holocaust told stories of their escape to their children — who hopefully live in a safer country.

"Luminberg"

All of their stories began as thus —

“It was 1942, and the Viennese and the
Serbs were each handed a box of
territory on the coast — a bit like Trieste.”

There was an old market square,
with hundreds of grocers,
all peddling their half-rotten onion skins.

There were dignitaries, and Stalinists,
but more than anything, this place was
a stronghold of learning and exchange.

Would you date anybody from Luminberg?
This was a trilingual people.

They spoke in tongues, whilst waiting for their
ships to dock, a bit like Marseilles,
in the fog of the dawn of human deception.

Their antics were few;
their crazes, many.
They struggled with the Lord’s Prayer,
as much as you and I.

If you met a Luminberger
somewhere down South,
like in Senegal, or out East,
like in Shanghai —

you would never speak directly;
it would always be,
through the use of an interpreter.

Luminberg, Luminberg.
Give me a bit of the old country;
before we were this innocent.

Luminberg, Luminberg.
You only wanted to be free.

Luminberg, my dearest sorrow;
love me, hold me:
there is no tomorrow.

Luminberg, Luminberg.
Let me be, a wedding for Thee.

*

The second poem is called “I’m Not Looking For The Easy Way Out, Baby,” and it’s about accepting our trauma histories, and preparing to work through them.

"I’m Not Looking For The Easy Way Out, Baby"

I’m not looking for the easy way out, baby; I am not even looking for the golden door.

Give it to me hard, coarse, and dirty: give it to me where the blood and the gore converge into sin and panhandling, overdose and defecation.

Baby, I am privileged enough. I don’t need your diatribe; it will take me fifty years of penance just to get to your level of purity.

You think this is easy? You think I move my mouth in vain as you suck on a peach? They didn’t give me a job description, you know. They just said: you can’t kill yourself (or others) and you can’t lie.

Those are hard rules to live by. Please: don’t make it any more painful than necessary. At least we have something to eat.

*

And finally, the third poem is called “I Will No Longer Bear Your Burden,” and it’s in memory of the 215 murdered children, who were found on the grounds of the Kamloops Residential School, in Kamloops, British Columbia, in 2021.

"I Will No Longer Bear Your Burden"

You want me to remember
everything that I want to forget:
you want me to surrender,
every iota of regret.

You want me to hurry up,
to get rid of all my hurt:
you want me to pussyfoot,
around the mud, the sex, and the dirt.

You want me to be polite,
to be obtuse, and to self-obstruct:
you want me to electrocute
myself, and to self-destruct.

Well: no more of your fashionistas,
no more of your self-control:
no more, then, of your mercy;
no more, of your cheap parole.

What I say now I have thought about.
What I say will forever be understood.
What I say will not be forgotten,
like you and all your friends would.

I am pledging today to cease allegiance,
to you and your family's crime;
I am promising myself to take my vengeance,
by not acknowledging your grime.

What you want, is civility:
what you want is human regret.
What I am is humility;
what I give, I can beget.

I will no longer bear your burden,
of self-flaggelation by the state:
I will no longer stare unbidden,
into molestation and child-rape.

I will no longer come untethered
by the very sight and sound of you.
I will no longer lightly tread,
before the floor creaks:

because we're so through.

**

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.