Here's the lighter given to me by my neighbor Jack,
   Which I borrowed once but never gave back
   One night the winter before last,
   When I had come downstairs to take out the trash,
   And found him out there, as his wont often is, smoking a cig, 
   And joining, listened to his troubles, all those small and big,  
   And, quoting the Gita, urged him to find the strength to bear through his strife, 
   And continue on—with his work, with his marriage, with his life. 

   And here's the lighter Albo gave me on Jeremy's roof last year,
   Which I used to relight a spliff, as we shook free our election night fears,
   That lighter whose picture of Britney Spears on its side made me laugh,
   That night we spent celebrating on our then-mayor-elect's behalf,
   That lighter I never gave back to him,
   Though I keep promising I will.

   And here's that lighter that Hope and I,
   Meeting again, as the rain poured outside,
   Used to light our joints with,
   As we talked about Jung, religion, the mystics,
   And the forever-warming climate.
   Perhaps she wanted me to remember her by it.
   Because she refused when I offered it back,
   Saying that, of spare lighters, she never lacks. 
   And remember her I do, for certain,
   But with more pain than she probably intended then.

   And too oft, in an old shirt's breast pocket, I find another, 
   A lighter given to me by family, a friend, or a lover. 
   And I thank the Lord up above for all I've had luck in this life to meet,
   Who once perhaps gave me a shoulder upon which to lean,
   Or who once perhaps, against my own unkind thoughts, helped me defend,
   Or, which is greater, gave me the dignity in offering my shoulder to them.

   So oft I feel I am only ever truly happy
   In your, my dear Lord's, loving company.

   That the only other soul that mine can manage to touch without pain
   Is your heavenly sprit, pervading the universe, which over all things lays.

   But I know there will come a time when I shall know naught
   But union in your embrace, which is all this whole fleeting life through I've sought.

   I know that now is the time that this little dust that I am gets to hold onto life
   And that I ought spend it in awe of all its blessings, even through all its strife

   But I only ever wish to stay here, praying to you, 
   And I begin to wonder if all my prayers are actually sin,
   If what I truly ask for is for that second life to come soon, 
   Along with all the peace that it may bring.

   When you first went to Shanghai, 
   I thought it was for only a time.

   That my best friend in the city, the first to show me down every subway stop and street
   Would be gone only a minute, that his egoless patience for me and my impulsivity
   Would come back to make me a home again, out of this city of dreams.
 
   And return you did, but only after you refused to say 
   That is was in Shanghai that you decided to stay.

   Outside that Chinatown Karaoke bar, I spoke to your sister over a joint,
   And told her that when I called, two continents and 12 hours away, in your day and my night, 

   That my anger at the fact that you would you leave and not tell me, I let show,
   Asking you how you could ever forget to say when my best friend in city, if ever, was coming home.

   But I learned that night, that perhaps it was love that kept you in Shanghai,
   That her Anglicized name is Kiki, that you met her online.

   And listening to you sing karoake until dawn,
	   "Oh, simple thing, where have you gone?
	   "I'm getting old and I need something to rely on"

   All my forgiveness flooded into my heart anew.
   O Henry, I know how loveless this city of dreams had left you.
   It has so oft left me the same. So know that, against you, I will never long let my anger brew.

   So please, always do tell me whenever you return, whenever o'er these city streets we again can roam,
   Whenever you're here to make this city of dreams feel the way it felt, back when I still needed a friend to make it home.

   Last night at sundown, strolling past a grove in Prospect Park, heading back to the subway from an evening we spent picnicking out in a clearing,
   With the night, left free by the setting sun, painting the path before us in darkness, I heard my divine friend Celia’s divine girlfriend Shelby sing,
   To me, and to dear Keegan in between, about how close to nature she feels, when she's in the Rockaways, when she's out there surfing.

   Out there on a single plank of wood over the freezing water. Out there alone, far from man. Out there completely in the ocean's hand.
   Learning to work with the waves as they come. Trying to be brave. Trying not to fall into the water and get swept back to land.
   Trying to pick herself back up. Trying not to spend all the sun's allotted time waiting for her nerves to cool. Preparing to launch herself back into the water from the sand.

   And after every tender goodbye lay said, on my walk back home alone, I thought to myself, "Isn’t that all there is to life's great show?" 
   Out here in this ocean of chance. Bracing for each wave, of happiness and of sorrow. Here in the whimsy of this world's every erratic throe. 
   Trying to enjoy the highs. Trying not to tip over on the lows.

   I said sorry to you; because, that you'd be tired to death from work on a fiery autumn day like this, I already knew,
   But called for you still, to come meet my friends, as they themselves met my friends.
   Because I wanted you to see all the beauty in them; because I wanted them to see all the beauty in you.
   And you told me to never to worry at all, that it’s easy when it’s for someone you care for, all the means through all the ends. 

   And I put my hand on your shoulder, and you turned, and we came to a stop, under a streetlight in Prospect Park.
   And I put my hand on your cheek, and kissed you on your forehead, brushing aside your hair.  
   And the hug you returned has never since ended, because I still go back to that spot over my heart where it left its mark. 
   I still ring your words back to me, thinking, "What little else have I ever needed more in this life? What little else, more than someone who cares?"

   Can you name all the two-sided platforms along the L train?
   I think I can now, even if only by 
   Remembrance of all our goodbyes.
   Of all those lonely nights and days, as the sky outside poured down sun, or poured down rain.

   All those moments, from late last year, to late last night,
   Waiting with you as I felt myself slowly go insane,
   For the delayed Manhattan-bound and delayed Brooklyn-bound train
   To come roaring, and pull us apart, out of each other's sight.

   Last night I held you in my arms, looking down into the twin universes in your eyes so tired, 
   As you held your gaze up towards me, and spoke of all the abodes 
   You once rested in but never will again, of how only New York can ever be home, 
   For souls like ours, torn between continents, those that have only ever sought a stable heart(h) to rest their fire.


   After such a tender embrace, how could I, of your feelings for me, 
   And thou, of my feelings for thee, still be left so uncertain?
   I'm not sure either. Perhaps it's some trick of your beauty, 
   Or perhaps some trick fragile hearts, on themselves, play when continually broken:
   To never trust good love when it comes, even when it lands at their feet.

   Or perhaps we've lived this life before, and its memories only come back in conversation.
   Perhaps you've always been Beatrice. And perhaps I've always been Dante, (only less creepy). 
   Perhaps, no matter the generation and no matter the nation,
   Love, in all my lives to come, will always play out like we've here seen.
   Perhaps it's only fate for one, o' bella, like you, to send this over-feeling mind of mine, like Majnun's, into distraction.

   Perhaps it's just that every aspiring Petrarch like me,
   Needs his heart torn asunder by a Laura,
   Someone always betwixt his fingers, yet somehow always out of reach,
   Someone always so near, yet somehow always so far.

   All The Saturday night revelers, flooding in from villages, both East and West,
   Looking for Eden in some nightclub off the Jefferson St L

   Clearly haven't heard of the woman selling heaven on the side with her home-boiled tamales 
   For five bucks a pop, over on Myrtle-Wyckoff, only two subway stops away, 

   Selling you, if you care to listen, the knowledge that all the divine happiness you seek can be bought for the price of simply leaving your phone at home 
   And letting good, hearty peasant food fill your stomach, and evaporate all future and all past into the divine present, there among the meek and the poor.

   O you imbecile of a man, barely worth being called anything more than a boy,
   I know you remember that night you spent, high on an upper, sedated on a downer, on only a few hours of rest,
   Laying there glued to your bed until dawn, afraid your heart was going to give out,
   There, with your arms outstretched, panicking at every hallucinated twitch in your chest.

   Yet here you are again, pill after pill, gummy after gummy, joint after joint
   Attempting to write a novel’s worth of words in single evening and party through the night

   When will you learn, you stupid child? That subtracting sadness from life entirely leaves nothing left? 
   That every attempt to drive it out completely leads you only to death?

If this servant can ask for a single prayer to come true, my Lord, I pray, 
Only for her affection, even if, in only a moment, she must leave this city of dreams, where I must stay.

I have seen already how a single touch of hers can set ablaze this soul. 
Give me the whole fire, Lord. I am ready to lose myself within it, to pay its every toll.

If I have read true the words you etched into my mind on this life's first day,
If it is true that my art is my highest offering to you, O' Lord, give me the fuel to set this lamp in my heart ablaze.

I know now that Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan was never wrong 
To call love a river of fire, which you must drown in to cross;

That, though oceans apart, Johnny Cash saw the same light when he called it a burning flame 
That makes for fiery rain.

But I say still, "I am ready," O' Lord, for it to burn me to pieces, for it to leave me in embers,
For this soul to be reborn in its ashes, reborn a million times more tender.

Let the poetry that comes forth after stand burnt free of excess. Allow it only to sing 
The language of the commonest peasant. Yet let it guide them in thought far above the crowns of kings.

Let me write a thousand poems of her after her departure. Let me bind it into a book. 
Let me offer it to the Pharisees of art. Let its warmth melt their cold hearts in a single look.  

Offer me not greatness for its success. Let it only find its place in the bookshelf of someone without the words to sing, thought their soul stands drenched in a deeper flame.
Let it listen to their sorrows. Let it strengthen their resolve. Let it lead them to dharma. Let it help them admit their faults with sweetness. Let it help them pray.

Do you imagine us embittered, our angers always at a boil?
That painting rich men have made of us has never been true.
I've found strength in learning to be happy in my toil,
Through all that, for paychecks, I've been made to do.

I've learned to work hard, and then, to rest.
It is the rich, among all those I've viewed,
Who, in matters of discipline and virtue,
Always fail the test.

See within me instead that stern, immovable, peasant-borne strength,
Which kings and royals for millennia abused, yet leaned on for defense.
That strength born, as peasants are, from cracks deep in the earth, yea, in fissures,
Formed as they are driven into the ground by generations of rich men, demanding yet to be richer.

Let the world not place love between us far.
I still wish for you, every night, upon the stars.
Come here. The longing in your heart so clearly tells
How the pain of heartbreak is one all classes know well.

Let us sit together, and watch this world fight through its million growing pangs anew,
Fight to realize that none should die from want, when so much of this world's fortune is held by so few,
Fight to rediscover that the measure of a man has never been his wealth,
That this world of unearned privilege and endless toil, with righteous fiery destruction, must be dealt,
That one ought be owed a portion of the fruit his hands planted in the ground,
That unity among men asks first for equality, ere it may be found.

I’m sorry to break your heart. I’m sorry to rob it of its shine.
Trust that mine has been broken a million times before.
Trust that I too cursed the ones who broke mine.
Yet here I am here, breaking yours.

Will these cycles of torment ever end?
Or will we roam here forever? 
Asking for love only from those who prefer us friends?
From those whose hearts from ours are severed?

I know this isn’t the poem you wished I write of you.
But o’ look through all these other poems, witnesses to all the times,
That I wrote through the night, trapped in my blues,
Of all the girls I once loved who, as I broke your heart, broke mine 

Because you’re in New York now! Welcome to the city of dreams! 
Trust that this city will break your heart
A million times before you leave,
In plane or in casket, in whole or in part.

But my friend Rumi, I’m sure you’ve heard tell of his art,
O’ he spoke to me the other day through time, 
And he told me to break my heart. 
Yes, to break my heart until it breaks open—open wide

And I know it may be hard to believe,
But when I say my grace and count my life’s lucky tokens,
Even as all the fragments of my heart I still crawl to retrieve,
I thank this city the most for this heart, this heart broken wide open.

Because the world comes to me now in poems.
Walt Whitman, who in my sadness oft keeps me company,
No longer needs remind me in his tomes
Of the source of all art. O’ Walt, I know it well already.

I’ve known my friend Rabindranath, yes Rabindranath Tagore,
Since I was a child. I read him well through my teenage years,
And all his poems of the infinite and divine that confused me before
Seem simple to me now, as I stumble home, drunk on four beers.

I know your promise. You know it yourself.
I think of how you spoke of this country, of all its pain.
And I know your art will serve it well,
Ease its sorrow, and guide it to freedom again 

It is told that when the Mongols to Nishapur came 
And raped and wrecked the city with flame,
That Attar, the city’s poet most famed,
Met them at the city’s gate
          And fought on, his sword to his hand still wed,
          E’en after he lost his head.

I see you the same, your sprit whistling through trees,
Your soul, like John Brown’s, marching on,
Fighting off this country’s worst enemies,
Well after you’re gone,
With the words that behind you leave.

For I have seen the meaning of your name,
From the Germanic, meaning universal or whole,
There is none better for an artist, one whose soul may never be tamed,
One dutybound to hold the universe aloft, its sins chastise, and its virtues extol.

So, write something of me.
Paint me o’er, as red as the devil, with shoeshine.
Make me the villain of all your stories.
I will make you the hero of all of mine.

          And trust this city will bless you in time
          With the love of someone taller, more handsome, more caring, less selfish than I.

          And you will be one with the one you love in this endless city of dreams.
          And the thought of me and all the pain I wrought will leave you completely.

Here I am, thinking of you again
Wishing to feel closer to you once more

O All these tortured thoughts,
Do they bring you closer to me as well?
Do they direct your thoughts to mine?

They say it cannot be so,
But I believe it still

And to jog my thoughts towards you, I listen to a song
A song that I learned from the breeze is close to you as well
And in the space between each pair of notes, I see you somewhere in eternity
Your dark cropped hair and evergreen smile
Swaying by yourself on your front stoop, with that purveyor of vaporized joy in your hand

And it hurts me to dream of you
But the thought of you is sweet 
So, I hold my breath 
And linger here as long as I can bear

This life’s an engine of steel. 
It roars o’er valleys, brooks, and plains. 
It spews steam and smoke, turning still air
To wind in my hair

So many places to go. So many things to see.
So much life to live. My life is to be long, 
And full of pain, and life's 
Small victories in between.

I wish to pile its smalls triumphs
To say at its end, “This is all I have accomplished! 
Be proud of me! 
Because I know I have worked hard enough 
To be proud of myself.”

But I’ve put my work away for the week
Because I’ve seen the germ of love in your eyes
And so I have stopped my train here, at your station
Because I do not work well while my heart longs
For completion 

So join me. Be the wind in my sails.
And I will be in the wind in yours.
Sail with me across the prairies.
Come witness this rolling parade of life
Here with me.

For I cannot wait here forever
This life calls on me, on and on and on,
And it would be cruel for me 
To break the heart of another 
To await a passenger 
That may never come.

I have missed my own trains. 
Love I thought would still
Be ripe for me as I wandered about,
Perusing my supposed better options
Only for them to choose another and 
For me, returning, to see the train I awaited
Has left my station

So I beg, catch this train while it awaits thee
I've come, of late, to stop so little for anyone
Because all their visits were but with disappointment
Your fear has never served you before.
Let go its hand. For love is worth but naught
Without the bravery to affect it.