The Department of the Interior Decorator
Call me a genius:
I flipped a C-table to make
a D-table, low
to the ground and perfect
for crossed legs.
A regular Eames.
Architects may come
I wonder what my grandfather,
the decorator, would think.
The one who was missing a toe —
a lawn mowing accident, perhaps,
fast tracking his relationship with
the inside world. How
could you not love design
with a name like Lloyd, the ‘L’s
forming an opaque furniture.
Strange that Frank Lloyd Wright never
had a client tall enough to say “no.”
and architects may go
Reading Ayn Rand on a beach vacation
in Mexico, in a house more water feature
than shelter, pond lapping at the legs
of the dining room table, sea table,
sick as a dog from the June
heat, I put the book down halfway,
leaving it among the other things
it wasn’t time for
like tequila
and blankets.
And never change your point of view
The bridge of “So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright” by Simon and Garfunkel is, for me, one of the stranger lyrical and melodic moments:
"Architects may come and architects may go
And never change your point of view.”
Lyrically, it’s not quite profound, but it is stated as if it is. I find myself humming it all the time, even after years away from the song. It’s sing-songy, almost childlike. Anyway, it’s. thread woven through today’s poem, which is a bit of a synaptic fever dream, leaping from image to image related to interior decorators and loosely held together by a few details. I think my grandpa lost his toe to a lawnmower, but I haven’t heard that in so long that I worry I might be making it up… hence the ‘perhaps’ line break.
If you’ve ever had the pleasure of going in a Frank Lloyd Wright house, they are wonderful, inspired and super short.
I giggled to myself at the phrase “Strange that Frank Lloyd Wright never / had a client tall enough to say ‘no.’”
“So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright” also takes up some real estate in my head. I feel like some perceive “only living boy in New York” as the standout between the two but this track with its abstract jazz flute solo has always been ingrained in me for its 3 AM-ness.
Love this as an homage to home and function and the things that become less functional as they eek toward decor. It’s beautiful and humorous!
Also, the last couple poems in a row had a longing in them of something imperceptible but absent, and this one is a fun immersion, as you said, in a kind of fever dream.