The Things We Do Not Face

The fact that the abstraction is confined in quotes, *if you are going to say something stupid, put it in someone else's mouth"

the above quote is a dictum I use

the unnamed and hidden almost has to be somewhat abstract

the fist and last line unquote act as a framing device (depth)

if I was feeling rambunctious I would recommend, however I feel I am playing a zero game around here and it would not generate anything further for you.

Best

Things we do not face ... could be drink if we do not admit we have a problem or do not admit to ourselves that it needs dealing with. Or it could be not facing that our marriage is going down the pan. Or that we are sinking into dishonesty or...

Othello did not face his jealousy, McBeth where his ambition was taking him, King Lear how his vanity was warping his judgement.

Of the various things I have learnt or come up with in my sixty plus years, I think that this is the second most telling or important.

I know that I have a huge fear of heights. It is not a great problem. Indeed in doing climbing, parachuting and several years hang gliding, I sort of faced it – though it is still there. In fact I thought I was pretty good at facing things. Then a few years back something occurred and as a consequence I saw whole areas where I had been lying to myself or not facing certain things all the way from my childhood – but so ingrained I had not been able to see it. The last eight years have been spent largely trying to redress that. This one is from the heart.

I do believe that there is a progression from a person being defined almost as a solid object is defined by its surface. It defines the boundaries for a person. I also believe it goes on to control and destroy us. It certainly destroyed a large part of my life (no, not drink or drugs). In many ways it is the hubris that is at the core of Greek tragedy. - which I believe is more culpable blindness than arrogance.

I agree as shown here it is abstract or cerebral. I could see no easy way of bringing it to life – beyond the added first and last lines.

Can only loosen the lips and the subsequent stranglehold. 5 ed.

I like this, but it had to grow on me. At first, I thought it too abstract. However, the first and last lines tie the poem together if problem drinking is the "thing," indeed perhaps for the narrator as well. If I'm wide of the mark, then I'm back to my original impression.

Although a matter of style and arguably not critical for the poem's effectiveness, I might have set the first and last lines apart from the rest of the poem to give them a little more emphasis. Just a thought.

I enjoyed it.

Pour me one toon while your at it