perfect day

finally got a decent night's sleep and i'm here to testify that good rest does wonders for the soul. which got me round to thinking about the perfect day. not, i mean, the perfect day, but a good day when the mind is at ease and the spirit is free. when you might not be at you're best but you feel a million bucks and stress turns into an abstraction.

so then anyway, i just read two things on the net that are examples of perfect days. first, an interview with cormac mccarthy where he describes his perfect day as sitting down with a few blank pieces of paper.

and then there is alex gildzen's poem another day begins which sounds like a perfect day to me.

i enjoy travel. i've done a share of it. i look forward to doing more. but i'm happiest sitting still. not moving from one spot for hours on end. perhaps that is why i've never left sac, one can never escape the self, which is a reason i suspect people move around, no matter where you are. plus, i've long thought, way before the net and the concepts of globalization became ubiquitous, that i am a citizen of the world, so my provincialism is international in scope. if that's the case, why leave the town i was born in which it so happens is the place i hope to die.

a perfect day for me is sitting in my chair in my backroom with my laptop, a couple movies, and a few books. occasionally i'll jot something down in my moleskin or try to flesh a poem out on the laptop but why hurry a poem into the world when the world is already so populated with good texts. i can sit here for hours on hours. my favorite time is dark, like right now, with a storm soon expected to be a real gullywasher. when i get up i get up only to pee, or get something to eat or drink. that is heaven to me.

i've appropriated the line from thom gunn's poem 'on the move' from being 'one is nearer by not keeping still' and made it as 'one is nearer by keeping still' for my own mantra.

what then pray tell is your perfect day.

blog tip of the week: f.a. nettelbeck's sewing memory. nettelbeck's been around a long time publishing his texts and chaps in the small-press but he's relatively new to me. i'm glad he's a prolific blogger. nettelbeck's gritty imagery and tangy slang bring to mind other notable poets of the down and out such as bukowski and william wantling but nettelbeck's way is his own. an unapologetic chronicler of the seamier slices of u.s. life nettelbeck is also a visionary experimental poet and is an addicting read.