Thugs
Go to Stanford.

And the construction workers
I've seen
Are more likely to spend
Their downtime playing
Video games
Then smoking the ****.

And I've seen my
Fair share of manic,
Wide-eyed young Filipinos
Like myself,

A little browner,
A little more beautiful,
I'm a little more racist
But

It's not okay.

Maybe.

Maybe not.

I guess what I simply want to say
Is there is a simple joy
To watching fingers
Of all kinds
Mold and shape futures,

Whether it be in the form
Of softened concrete slabs
Or the hard writ
Of word,

Whether it taste
Of exhaust smoke
And leather

Or orange juice
The school
Is the sky

The blue sky and the
Fields and university
Is a gold-ringed
Fist and in this

Respect we all have
Our PhDs.

And as for this sheltered
Unsheltered rooftops
Holed like ozone
World we've all built together
Well,

We try to find words for it
And collapse.

Porous asphalt,
And bandaged, quilt
Homes puncture the
Neighborhood,
Which reads like a tattered
American flag; all
Coke Ads and weight loss
Billboards,

Half-burnt houses slant,
Like the hills of San Francisco—
Our own makeshift cable
Carts, limping up
And down the inclines.

We are slowly being burned
By our once golden sun—
Having been taught to
Bleach ourselves
Pale, tucked shamefully
In the shade.

Makeshift shanty towns
Which smell of mildew
And processed laundry soap,
Flimsy tin roofs
Tied with Kleenex and
Pizza Hut tarpaulins.

The fact that this neighborhood
Was christened "Freedom"
Strikes an empty pang.

John Keats
John Keats
John
Please put your scarf on.

They sing songs
Of desert gypsies
And chain smoking bulls,

Of mirages that kiss
Your throat
And linger quietly

Waiting,
While you quickly catch
Your crumpling breaths,

Drunken wisps
Of sandpaper snow
Flickering and coarse—

Palms warm to the touch.