New from Disengagement Books: Tim Allen's Skinned Wind

 

9/11/26: Disengagement Books is thrilled to announce the publication of Tim Allen's poem Skinned Wind. 

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Book Description:

Written in response to a poem by Roger Gilbert-Lecomte (French, 1907 - 1943)  Skinned Wind grew into an engagement with the dark surrealism of ruin and cultural revolt as played out in the long shadows cast by romantic misfunction and fascist  horror upon the post-war psyche.

Poem and Notes: Tim Allen

Illustration and Jacket: Terry Hackman

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Sample (from pp. 24 - 25, if you want to know...)

A Magritte midriff cannons out of the mist
magicians adore the gnarled babe in their midst
this time I missed you but tomorrow we’ll play dead
the Magdalene bounces Barnes Wallis on her knee

Wind bounced into/onto black kite’s eye-slits
sky torso clouds blown off burnt books on rocks
ripped black wine lashed to iceberg in valley of neon
fickle librarian fines fickle archivist the soul thief 

Passing the paraphernalia of aquarium crime
parsing the time with walk-in cupboard silverfish
wet nurse drops baby into bath of liquid chrome
swan roosting in treetop candelabra drops roasted baton

He hung himself on the windings of the sacred river
river was a sewer carrying poetry’s sacrificial victims 
I crawled from my skin then across the nave floor
surrounding city walls – the quiet fizz of quicksand

The fizz was amplified by my drunk driving
rubbery flame of lumpen wraith on municipal dump
scarlet lard on the banks of the midnight Seine
erotic immortal starved of mother’s slippery venom

Slop on a greasy slope squeal all us excited equals
mountain sits on police horse blocking cityscape
acoustic black hole slips off to go around the block
a barricade of Portland stone drugs this country lane 

Heavy headed trees queue and sweat lime rain
heavy handed drummers wait for Heraclitus at fly-tip
phoenix eggs snatched from ashtray at light speed 
nest built with stolen plectrums raided by Gestapo

Plucked at the cusp of curfew 
war photographer distracted
a breathless dusting of stray moth-eaten star clusters
is this limping dog an abbey school or Flying Fortress?

Crumby transfer on wrist cracks in solar flare
fire door fades into physicist’s body art 
revolver’s notches leak their lustre into March snow
the march from the mink farm melted our hearts

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Buy your copy of Skinned Wind: 

https://www.lulu.com/shop/tim-allen-and-terry-hackman/skinned-wind/paperback/product-kvg7mg9.html

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Also by Tim Allen in Disengagement Books:

https://michaelpeverett.blogspot.com/2021/07/peasant-tower.html