Federal Hill

They put it in the papers

All the time

How it’s not the same

As it was

No fucking kidding

What is?

What’s the same

As it was

Thirty, forty years later?

The Pyramids?

The Grand Canyon?

The Ocean?

Even the oceans aren’t the same

They’re rising

Read a book

Fucking A

The Hill’s changing, so what?

All for the better?

Things don’t change for the better

In ways you recognize

My wife gets a new hairdo

You think I notice?

No

Does that mean I don’t like it?

No

Maybe she gets a haircut I don’t like

Then I notice

Maybe if I don’t notice

It means things are good

That’s how it is with my wife’s head

Why should the Hill

Be any different?

I like the new activity

I don’t like the crime, obviously

But there’s always been crime

That’s just part of the culture

The only thing that’s changed

Is who the crime is happening to

Nobody cared when their uncle

Was beating the shit out of somebody

So long as they nice and tucked in

A few blocks away

And nobody was going to bother them

And sometimes even then

People bothered them

Because maybe some people

Didn’t like your uncle so much

People tell the story

The way they want

To tell the story

This one’s a hero

And that one was a sweetheart

And this one went with all the boys

And there’s where you used to get soda pop

For a penny

Fuck all that

How do you know you can trust

The people telling you all this, huh?

You don’t

My sister lives near the Armory

And she used to be terrified

To leave her house

She’s still terrified

But now when she leaves

I’m not terrified

So that’s something, right?

When I was a kid

My best friend

Had an aunt

Who lived out in the woods

No people around

And one night

Three guys broke into her house

Tied her up

And left her there

For three days

Before somebody found her

She could have died

Cause of some maniacs

Surprised they didn’t kill her

And you want me to be thinking about--

Oh, aren’t you scared

Of where you live?

We should all be scared

To be alive

Period

There’s no such thing as safe

No matter where you are

So sometimes living in the fire

Is better than living

Next to it

Don’t you think?

Weird way of looking at it

But that’s how I look at things

That’s how you don’t drive yourself crazy

And sometimes you go crazy anyway

Nothing you can do

Nothing you can do about that