Eddie’s House (San Anselmo, CA, 1956)
Wright’s only design
for a canine.
Eddie’s house, so doggone fine
like all of Frank Lloyd Wright’s designs,
leaked but not to panic —
‘twas au naturel, organic.
See how it spread its winglike eaves
evoking autumn leaves in flight
a late triangular delight,
silhouette noble in twilight,
or that’s what Eddie’s boy believes.
Oh the Japonesque architect
how populist to join the mob,
lend his pen to a four-pawed pet,
drop his rep as autocratic snob,
doff his wide-brimmed porkpie hat,
and deign a doghouse to design —
just this one time. Jealous? Hate it?
You just can’t appreciate it
for your own cynical reasons:
quibbles with epicureans?
My policy is not to waste
fine wine on those who have no taste.
It didn’t take much of the artist’s time
away from designing the Guggenheim;
a quick sketch back-of-the envelope
stoked a twelve-year-old’s fond hope
just innocent enough to ask
the great man for this humble task.
Ipso presto Wright had it done,
shipped the sketch to Taliesen
where assistant architects
filled in all needed building specs,
the same care they spent lavishing
on edifices more ravishing,
like Fallingwater, Hollyhock,
or Marin County Civic Center
where Eddie’s doghouse ended up.
Daddy built it with no splinter
out of place, from mellifluous
roof to floor, no superfluous
extra or extraneous wings
unlike the shapely things Frank drew
for sapiens like me and you,
cutting all philistine glut
simple as a monk’s grass hut.
But Eddie was not satisfied
with his new den though it was Zen
and never slept a wink therein
until the day he died.
Richard Collins lives in Sewanee, Tennessee. His books include In Search of the Hermaphrodite: A Memoir (Tough Poets, 2024), Stone Nest (Shanti Arts, 2025), and Cartoons for the Chaos (Shanti Arts, 2026). Special features and nominations (Pushcart, Best of the Net, Best Spiritual Literature) appear in Clockhouse, Philly Chapbook Review, Shō Poetry Journal, Willows Wept Review, and The Seventh Quarry. His most recent poems appear The Lyric, Rat’s Ass Review, and Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.
Pulsebeat Poetry Journal 