A New Head

Guņabhadra, an Indian Buddhist monk,

arrived in China around 435 CE. He

“struggled to teach the Dharma in Chinese. . . .

until one night he dreamed that a kindly

sword-wielding god cut off his head

and replaced it with an exact replica.

The next day, he could speak Chinese

fluently.”*

We cannot summon up new heads to order,

and I’m no teacher of the Dharma!

Yet I gaze from my Old Gold mountain aerie expectantly,

burnishing my tarnished pissant karma—

hoping to see a headsman deity.

*Donald S. Lopez Jr., Buddhism: A Journey through History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2024), 52.

Tuesday, September 30, 2025

Threnody for Camille

Camille Claudel, Clotho (1893), ensnared in her own hair

Κλωθώ speaks:

No contrapuntal selves renew

Souls spun here on my throne of stone,

Warping, beastly Death deceiving.

Lachesis, measuring the thread,

Atropos, jotting down what's read,

They'd be lost without my weaving

Designer winding sheets concealing

Shrouds for ghosts, prêt-à-porter.

Remember Camille Claudel today,

Who once saw Clotho's image near,

Caught in the toils of her own hair.

She was, alas, locked up as mad,

Art done down to raze the dead,

With lies by monied envy spread.

Statue of the ancient Greek fate Clotho in Druid Ridge Cemetery, near Baltimore, Maryland. Photograph by Sam Lehman. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/en:Creative_Commons.

Camille in the 1890s. The Camille Claudel Museum in Nogent-sur-Seine opened in 2017.

Wednesday, September 24, 2025

The Origin of the World

Gustave Courbet, L'Origine du monde (1866), Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Shall quips and sentences and these paper bullets of the brain awe a man from the career of his humor? No, the world must be peopled.

—Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing, act 2, scene 3

Fall officially arrives later this afternoon.

Hurricane Gabrielle is 600 miles east of Bermuda.

The Louvre on fire, Venus de Milo sheltering at a police station,

Gustave Courbet is pulling down Napoleon's Vendôme Column.

They sent him a bill for it in Switzerland later; he stiffed the nation.

Painting The Origin of the World was just a commission. A job to do.

I know this isn’t Paris, 1871. That's news to you?

Time's careening to infinity. It’ll be midnight soon.

Cover image: Gustave Courbet, self-portrait, Le Désespéré (1843). Private collection.

Monday, September 22, 2025