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

Sicut dixit mima episcopo . . .

"I can’t show you, as the actress said to the bishop."

—Kingsley Amis, Lucky Jim (1954)

The bishop to the actress said,

"It wasn't meant to be this way!

If I lived in the great Louis’ day

I'd be an atheist abbé.

But since I don't, I waste my lines

And spoil my inoffensive rhymes,

Asking too much of better times;

Now love has left me, yet unread!”

To this the doubting girl replied,

“There’s reason on the nighttime side

To be remitted? No, indeed!

It's Real Presence that you need.

A rose has thorns. So it may prick.

A throbbing thumb can make you sick!"

Sunday, September 21, 2025