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I Beg the Buddha
Yesterday I passed a neighborhood
in which Mother ceases to nourish lives to thrive
And her bosom quits from feeding manhood,
Where basic survival of lives is pulverized.
Heat thrusts the ground into crevices:
Fleas hunting for corpses of rodents in rampage.
Streams of strong stink swarm from abyss;
Passersby dig out wrinkled masks— disgusted face.
Days go by while the light boards flick on and off
“Welcome to Chinatown” ridicules the endless trough
When iron-fenced portiere of diner is lifted off,
a family of three kneeling down to the Buddha for help.
I beg the Buddha
To cleanse the dirty chaos from diseases
When evergreen washes off the creases
It seems like the world is in its glitches
We are omitted from the peace and
Render us appease.
I beg the Buddha, our only bond to oasis.
Few blocks away rests a factory
Fume from the funnel erupting volcanic waste.
Toxic heat makes red dragons to weep
Why should lives of virtuous vendors get debased
Today I pray I mourn and I fear
The tradition will dance away in elegance
As the district no longer prosper.
Cheap. Destructive. Inhabitable. True essence.
Few blocks away holds some garment shops
The air throttles millions asian breaths at ease
Unnamed chemical swirls with teardrops
Skins turn from yellow to cherry after some sneeze.
What could they do but follow the norm
Which fabrics from run-down sweatshop are the villains
For byssinosis and firestorm,
When known dangers at work need to remain chasten.
Yesterday I passed a neighborhood
Some goldfinches warble a lament in struggle
“How shall one outlive through this falsehood
when fates are fainted and dreams are undreamed in null?”
The sobbing of men—
Of children of ants of epiphyllum
Of entangled sea turtles of long-lived frogs
Of beautiful sun of suave moon of beguiling earth
Of the most is Chinesemen:
Whose kindness are exploited by unkinds
Whose abodes are abided by contamination
Whose lives are unlived by legal administrations.
I beg the Buddha again this time,
to which I leave my real sorrow in the cloudless clime.
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Scrolling through my photo albums, memories from the past flickered across my mind. I remembered times visiting Chinatowns when I was little; the smell of pungent trash piles and dirty wastewater flew into my nostrils, making me disgusted, and what's more, uncomfortable. That was when I decided to picture these unpleasant scenes through my poem, thereby showing society that racial stereotypes are shaping a particular group of people in the US for more than a century.