Soliloquy of the Anguished Architect (1993)
(with Apologies to the Bard)

To see, or not to see, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The bumps and bruises of outreaching furniture,
Or to place arms in front of me and hobble,
And by thus posing fend them. To turn, the switch—

No more— and by the light we then could end
The foot ache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is bared to! 'Tis illumination
Devoutly to be wished. By light, to see—
To see— around the room: ay, there's the rub,

For in that light of day what sights may come
When we have powered up this tungsten coil,
Must give us pause. There's the respect
That makes calamity of so bright light:

For who would bear the shades and hues of neon,
Th' upholsterer's wrong, the decorator's contumely,
The pangs of displaced paint, the loud decor,
The unrelenting carpet, and the spurns
That artistic merit of th' wallpaper takes,

When he himself might his hiatus make
With a bare blindfold? Who would trip o'er chair,
To grunt and yelp after each painful stub,
But that dread of fabric loud and bright,
That over–colored carpet, to whose floor
No traveler returns, puzzles the will,

And makes us rather bump those chairs we have,
Than view those colors that we dare not love?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,

And thus the lighted view of sight pollution,
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of dark,
And hard surprises of great pain and movement,
With this regard occurrence doubles high,
And loose the name of accident.