Like scribes, they lean closer, watching the old men he blessed for long life stand and listen.
[…]
In the portrait of Jefferson that hangs at Monticello, he is rendered two-toned: his forehead white with illumination—
Walt Whitman was a poet of hope and encouragement, but his greatest poem is bleak at heart, ripped bloody, and shredded with despair. He was our verbal cheerleader, our avid egoist as well as our most enthusiastic inclusionist.
Batter my heart. Burn me with a cigarette.
