THE POET'S ALIBI

Jim Rintoul, live at the Boulder Creek Bistro 12/04/1996

One of the most inventive poets
of Boulder Creek's Middle Bistroscene Era
(when giants walked the earth)
was Jim Rintoul
captured below on video
(Dec 4, 1996) by Allan and Sun Lundell.

Jim Rintoul: I wonder 
how many among us 
poets and writers have ever
somewhere in the recesses of our minds
felt that we had the power with our words
to launch something so powerful
into the heart of a culture
that it would just rip it apart
and something beautiful and new
would emerge?

I know that this fantasy
animates much of my life.

That's where this comes from:

THE POET'S ALIBI

(upon slaying unavoidably
a few pillars of conventional wisdom.)

Had you ever thought about
how hard it had become to do
anything really holy anymore?

The holy event
demands a rawness,
a stripped situation,
whereas
the down comforters
of modern convention
had smothered
the sacred impulse
in its own dank heat.

The valley of the shadow of death
had been buried
under asphalt intersections
and fertilized lawns.

Just think about
how hard it had become
to get really naked anymore.

The clothes of common understanding
clung to bare skin
like a hot wet fog
like a thick exhalation.

Bones packed in such fat,
like flies in amber,
can't be easily rattled
to stir the demon guides
and spirit helpers.

There was just no way around it, Judge --
I had to destroy that culture to save it.