Eliot was wrong.

April is not the cruelest month. I don't give a fuck for dull roots and spring rain.

I was going to keep this short, but having written that sentence and title I'm overcome with thoughts. The real "cruelty" of eliot's spring is twofold: it's the 'lie' of resurgent growth, of sudden fecudity and abundance, but already containing the seed of rot within it, and it's the horror of the gunslinger's fate at the end of the novels by Stephen king; the terrible cruelty (there I said it) of being denied rest, denied an ending; to have to go on.

I have a terrible disease of the soul that causes me to always see the other side of the argument. Even here, even now. Eliot was probably only using the juxtaposition as a cheap device anyway, yet here I am thinking about the fact that maybe there's merit in seeing it his way after all. But no.

November is the cruelest month. This is when things die, with no hope of coming back, and it's only romantic if you're a pretentious twat. death is ugly and sordid and we still have to go on even though the next few months contain bitter darkness and cold hard rain or worse. So take your hollywood family rollicking in the cathedral of fluttering golden leaves and shove it up your ass. I'm not buying.

This blog is dead, and has been for a year. The whole of november - not the paltry tribute of a few pithy days - it's all the month of the dead. The dead are speaking. I want to tell you what they have to say.