This mind that grinds & twists beneath the skin

[tectak]

...Unless you punctuate to clarity I have the hang MAN in a tight dress. I feel Freud creeping in!...

"Dress" as in a general term for an article of clothing/clothing in general. It's supposed to be for the man. You are jesting

His breath to make confined and stutter short,
Though freer than the suffocated breast
On which he softly treads and pulls athwart. Sounds good...means nothing. Help

How do you mean? I asked first

Be very careful with Freudian confirmations. Thanatos was around( mythically speaking) before Freud. Thanatos was the silent killer, the gentle death, the sleep into the endless night. Freud theorised the shit out of the death wish but never declared a liaison with any contra ( gegengewich) theoretical construct. I must say that I like the firstness of the idea but think it is flawed from the outset. To be discussed.

Wilhelm Stekel was the person who named the death-drive "Thanatos", so I guess that makes it more post-Freudian. Agreed...but Thanatos was not much for the hanging, particularly as a mortal choice, so maybe the linkage is duff

The ambiguity of/parallel between "Thanatos & Eros" as references to Freud and the direct references to classical figures (and thus taken simply as a personification of "love and death").

The punctuation is, errr, innovative.

Is that to say sloppy, or just odd? Neither. Innovative

The whole is greater than the sum of the parts and I would be mischevious to suggest radical reform. Sometimes slanted references, by that I mean references being superficially accepted by the many but with a deeper significancs for the few, become the raison d'etre for a whole poem when that is not the writer's intention. The intellectual polemics created by the T and E relationship is just that and nothing more...hardly worth the argument in the round. The piece has many legs so stands the loss of one. I am liking it.
Best,
tectak