A square pamphlet with unnumbered pages. 30 poems, except that each is several poems in a 2-D arrangement. To see what I mean, have a look at an extract. The conceit is that they're reconstructed tiles from a psychiatrist's cellar. On the back it says that the maker was an inmate. At the front it's not so clear whether the work is by one patient or several.
Yes, there's a block of text in the centre of each tile (usually 14 lines) which could be analysed as a unit, but even this is sometimes broken into parts. There's big text (treat it as a title if you wish), border text, and extra annotations. Juxtapositional effects need to be taken into account. And how do the poems interact with each other? Do the borders join up? Perhaps they form a 3 by 10 floor, or a 5 by 6 one. Associations are loose, flung to the edges of the page and beyond.
Patterns vary even in the first 3 poems. "Uncle Imagines", has 14 lines of 10 syllables, the rhyme scheme "abacdc efef ghhg". "En Route Nowhere" has 14 lines of 10 syllables, the rhyme scheme beginning "aabbcc" then fading out. "Garret Brain" has 7 rhyming couplets, with 9 to 12 syllables per line. "Uncle" appears a few times, as does bird imagery, bats and flies (the theme of flight and escape pervades). The Prof (their healer, but maybe also a literary prof, the healer of the broken tiles) gets several mentions. Mary appears at least 3 poems. There are Kings - of Bohemia, Ponds and Woods.
I think some spadework needs to be done before the poems can be fully appreciated. Let me try to assemble some information about each piece
| Title? | Label (bottom left) | Notes |
| Uncle Imagines | Moral | |
| En Route Nowhere | Essay | |
| Garret Brain | Lyric | |
| Folk Song | Plaint | One of 2 plaints (a lamentation) |
| Empty Grotto | Scéance | |
| Cirque de la Lune | Disdain | |
| Enter visitor | Taxon | |
| Heliotrope | Idea for a musical theatre | Centred. About Icarus? |
| Drink Sleep | Portrait | About pubs |
| Beetle Jackpot | Essay | One of 2 essays. Start and end of each line are an anagram-pair |
| Country Market | Eulogy | Acrostic: Struts by Weland |
| Marsh Mood | Prediction | Acrostic: Blissfulnesses |
| Hemipteron | Law 32 | Hemipteron=an insect with sucking mouthparts |
| Roundel Pit/Iris | Memorandum | Acrostic: Wright Brothers. Around the outside it says 'contraption bred of brotherly love' |
| Confessio Amantis | Essay | One of 2 essays. "The Lover's Confession" is long Middle English poem. Near the middle of each line is a capitalized letter. Together the letters form 'archaeopteryx'. About Darwin? |
| Hut Love | Plaint | One of 2 plaints (a lamentation) |
| Fanned Feathers | Courtesy | |
| Supernal Dresser | Song | 6 lines end with 'violet flowers' |
| Orange Embers | Edict of Words | |
| The Weak the strong The stronger the angels | Tale | |
| Mary forgive me | Lullaby | |
| Bright March | Monody | |
| Stygoxene | Sketch | Stygoxene=organisms found only occasionally in caves |
| Ox Looking behind him | Experiment | |
| Strata lying | Phantasy | |
| Under reaching | Sounding | Mentions HappenStance (bottom right) |
| Messiah of the boatmen | Report | |
| Scrape sump | Proverb | |
| Earth bank | Lure | |
| King of the wood | Rebuke |
How much is random and how much carefully constructed? I don't know. Around the first poem "KLABOUTERMANNIKIN" appears. LAB? ABOUT? OUTER? TERM? MANNIKIN? Around "Orange Embers" is "MANIKINS" - any connection? I think "orange" is only mentioned in one other place - in "Fanned Feathers". Significant? All in all it's an ambitious and noteworthy effort. I may well add to these notes later.
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