The Discovery of Anti-time

Jim Rintoul

THE DISCOVERY OF ANTI-TIME

This being the tale

of the future discovery

of what was at first assumed to be

counter-reality,

(and as such did not matter),

but which soon came to be known as anti-time.

 

Because anti-time could be surfed

like any wave,

the implementation

and subsequent proliferation

of anti-time devices

for the home and workplace

made anti-time big business

if you could just get your board

in the water in time

moving forward

against a headwind of the future

rushing into the past,

to ride the wave till it crashed

and let time (the undertow of anti-time)

reel you back into the present.

The discovery of anti-time

anti-mattered so much

that time began to matter again,

until it became so cheap to produce

that everyone spent it freely.

 

Jim Rintoul lives in Santa Cruz, 

was a prominent member of 

the Boulder Creek Bistroscene, 

and has just published  

It Only Laughs When I Hurt 

Aquarian Moon Productions (2024)

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.