Walt Whitman in the Civil War Hospitals [Poem]

James SchminckeUncategorized

— David Ignatow, 1970 Prescient, my hands soothing their foreheads, by my love I earn them. in their presence I am wretched as death. They smile to me of love. They cheer me and I smile. These are stones in the catapulting world; they fly, bury themselves in flesh, in a wall, in earth; in midair break against each other …

To Walt Whitman, The Man [Poem]

James SchminckeUncategorized

— John James Piatt Washington, May, MDCCCLXIII Homeward, last midnight, in the car we met, While the long street streamed by us in the dark With scattered lights in blurs of misty rain; Then, while you spoke to me of hospitals That know your visits, and of wounded men (From those dread battles yonder in the South) Who keep the …