The Nicest Buildings in the Neighborhood

The worth of a neighborhood is determined by its architecture
Not the style although it is true
That the style you choose or embrace could determine your stature
What I rue
Is that certain institutions are worth more than others
It makes sense I suppose
Those institutions, our economic growth they smother
Now what institutions are those?

The police station is one of grand merit
The most oppressive physically
Not even darkened street lights could forget
The assault on bodies and minds and the local economy
Prisons pay Hollenbeck Station well
A new barn with new troughs
They hope every untaxed business fails
So that their home is modern and nice how it ought

There is a beautiful hospital near my home
Doctors and nurses and other health professionals can help
Our community is riddled by disease and violence prone
A new, larger emergency room and a bigger staff tell
That this hospital will be busy forever
How beautiful are the buildings that house
Bodies victimized by a neighborhood clever
A neighborhood whose pain can't be espoused

The funeral parlor down the street is well structured
Bodies battered and bruised, hard workers of industries
That the police and the county and the state rupture
Limos and low riders, classics and modern imports
Are a moat around a beautiful building of celebration
Celebrating lives in peril and those of innocence and calm
Lives thought to survive the hospital and those whose time had been waitin'
Tall Roman columns laud mother's with their face in their palm

Those bodies at the funeral parlor are destined for a church
Where absolution and explanation for death will come
Before that body is hauled off to the cemetery's dirt
The pastor or the the priest will measure a life's sum
A Spanish Gothic building filled with woodgrain pews
The stained glass windows enlighten confessionals
Every sin that is spewed
Is a dollar towards the lifestyle of a church and its religious professionals

The grocery store sells frozen meat and nearly expired vegetables
One of the worst high schools in the city still graduates our future
Community centers and parks are poorly maintained and unsuitable
But as long as our lives can be impeded by those creatures
Who only use our bodies to make a living
We will always live in pest infested apartments
Government housing will always be perceived as giving
And our lives we will forever lament

Someone Sinister will be available at Amoeba Music on July 22nd, 2013. Keep checking in because it will soon be available at a bookstore near you (if you live in Southern California). AYEEE