I don’t believe in big business and
organizations for the betterment of
The Dollar.  I don’t believe in politicians,
speeches, television, dogma, salesmanship.
I don’t believe in blindly supporting one
team over the other.  I don’t believe in
the kind of ambition that resembles
Sherman’s March to the Sea.  I don’t
believe in using God as a strategic
weapon or argument-winner.  I don’t
believe in hypocrisy no matter how well
it pays.

I believe that some people are better than
others, but not based on race or class or
religion or education, but because some
people are kinder, more decent, better
dancers, funnier.  I believe in discovery
and re-discovery.  I believe in play and
work and rest.  I believe that counting
blessings is often more effective than
counting sheep.  I believe in strong
feelings.  I believe in mercy and
forgiveness.  I believe in
consequence.

I don’t believe in Ignorance, even though
it is one of our largest industries. I don’t believe
in entitlement.  I don’t believe in arrogance,
hubris, puffery and grandstanding even though
they have worked for me in the past.

I believe in love, and death, and music.  I
believe in baseball.  I believe in the ocean.
I believe in a vague and loving God.  I
believe in possibilities.  I believe in the
people of America, even if I don’t believe in
America Inc., or Religion Inc., or War Inc.,
or Truth Inc.

I believe that there is a lot more bad poetry
than good, but that the good poetry is
worth finding.  I believe that that is true
of most things.  I believe that every choice
I have ever made has brought me here, and
that this is exactly where I should be.

I believe that I am hugely blessed.
I believe that I am just beginning, and
almost done.

Man Oh Manifesto

Who the hell you looking at?  I,
sir, am a poet!  The second oldest profession,
more mysterious than the Masons, more
powerful than small armies or
large nations, I am magic,
I am speaking in tongues, I am the
anti-Houdini: stripped naked I can
create a prison out of thin air.

Every man wants my words, every
woman wants my magic, every child
dreams of the day she can
throw balls of flame at an
unsuspecting room and
raise the dead.

I don’t need food or water or money, I
don’t need recognition or adulation, I’m the
cockroach who will write all the
beautiful eulogies that no one will be
left to hear, I don’t need marble or canvas or
board, I’m a conjurer, Jack, I’m God if
God crumpled the newly made
earth every day and tried to make a
better one.

Oh, be afraid, because I can’t be bought, that
transaction doesn’t exist, I am the most
necessary of men yet no one wants what I offer, so
that makes me the nightmare enemy; the
ragtag skeleton, house blasted to gravel,
nothing left to lose and no dreams to
lug about, just a belly filled with bitterness and
words words words words words, and
who the hell you looking at?