The Creative Brief for My New Publicist

To Gillian Welch

It’s to you I owe

Such infinite thanks

For laying the foundation

Of my newest business plan

To make all of my best poems and

Stories completely free

Never really believing

In the sanctity

Of copyright law

It stands perfectly

To reason that

I would end up

Going down this

Contrary path

Not competing
With ASCAP

But making

My separate way

Asking nothing at all

Other than full permission  

So that each good and kind reader

May only receive my poems gratis

Having first acknowledged

Me in return as confidant

And fully trusted even

If not intimate friend

My business strategy

Being -- for those of you

Who care to know --

That simply by

Making everything

I most value freely at

The world's disposal

My poems may be better known

And beyond that

I don’t know or care

Whatever ensues

Not Walt Whitman

Not William Blake

Neither Li Bai

Nor Du Fu

Ever thought

A bit differently

About their own work

So the very same recompense

That proved acceptable
To the greatest poets

Shall be good enough for me
So look for me under your boot soles
Or on the Internets
As the case may be