Wrote Ezra Pound in his 1908 “Villonaud for this Yule”

Towards the Noel that morte saison
(Christ make the shepherds’ homage dear!)
Then when the grey wolves everychone
Drink of the winds their chill small-beer
And lap o’ the snows food’s gueredon
Then makyth my heart his yule-tide cheer
(Skoal! with the dregs if the clear be gone!)
Wineing the ghosts of yester-year.

Ask ye what ghosts I dream upon?
(What of the magians’ scented gear?)
The ghosts of dead loves everyone
That make the stark winds reek with fear
Lest love return with the foison sun
And slay the memories that me cheer
(Such as I drink to mine fashion)
Wineing the ghosts of yester-year.

Where are the joys my heart had won?
(Saturn and Mars to Zeus drawn near!)
Where are the lips mine lay upon,
Aye! where are the glances feat and clear
That bade my heart his valour don?
I skoal to the eyes as grey-blown mere
(Who knows whose was that paragon?)
Wineing the ghosts of yester-year.

Prince: ask me not what I have done
Nor what God hath that can me cheer
But ye ask first where the winds are gone
Wineing the ghosts of yester-year.

WHAT GHOSTS DO YOU DREAM UPON? WILL SOME FOLLOW YOU TO 2020?

Onward, Christian Fascists https://www.truthdig.com/articles/onward-christian-fascists/#.XgoWAgkTnzI.twitter

Chris Hedges, once again, spot on.

James Ellroy’s new book, ‘This Storm,’ is out.

‘I was a tortured, obviously brilliant child’: James Ellroy interviewed https://www.spectator.co.uk/2019/12/i-was-a-tortured-obviously-brilliant-child-james-ellroy-interviewed/

… Dyfi Valley style 2010

• 

A Happy Christmas and a Good New Year to you all

OR MAYBE NOT!

… is an American English phrase from the 1950s. The truth is, that when many are tested, they discover that they are not ‘tough’ at all. But hollow men … and women! They profess true love or solid friendship, they boast solidarity to a cause, but when it’s time to stand up for their cause, they ‘cool’ off. They were never really passionate about something, or someone … it was all show, as we say today.

I like the way Shakespeare puts it in ‘The Tragedy of Julius Caesar’ (1599)

BRUTUS Thou hast described
A hot friend cooling. Ever note, Lucilius,
When love begins to sicken and decay
It useth an enforcèd ceremony.
There are no tricks in plain and simple faith; 
But HOLLOW MEN, like horses hot at hand,
Make gallant show and promise of their mettle,
Low march within.
But when they should endure the bloody spur,
They fall their crests and, like deceitful jades,
Sink in the trial. Comes his army on? 

And of course, T S Eliot’s ‘The Hollow Men’ from 1925

We are the hollow men
 We are the stuffed men
 Leaning together
 Headpiece filled with straw.

But my soul, From sight and sense of the polluting woe Of tyranny, had long learned to prefer Hell’s freedom to the servitude of heaven. Therefore I rose, and dauntlessly began My lonely and unending pilgrimage …

Yes! A lonely and unending pilgrimage!

SPIRIT. Is there a God?

AHASUERUS. Is there a God?—aye, an almighty God,
And vengeful as almighty! Once his voice
Was heard on earth: earth shuddered at the sound;
The fiery-visaged firmament expressed
Abhorrence, and the grave of nature yawned
To swallow all the dauntless and the good
That dared to hurl defiance at his throne,
Girt as it was with power …

Unending? Not really – you just walk away from him.