By Glenn Cornwell

Over inflated aspirations, with less the grammar school education, where life means less than money, and the Kingpin signifies success, on my block.
Shoes are more important than books, and everybody packs heat, just looking for a come up or some drama, on my block.
The child disrespects his mama, and looks up to the robber, on my block.
Police are hated, and never fail to hate back, while the thug is loved. The concern citizens house is burned to the ground for what he shouldn't have seen anyway.
Gotta mind your own, on my block.
Infested with drugs, where chrome rims mean more than the baby's milk and every youngster wants to be either Michael Jordan or Scarface. How many Michael Jordans are there anyway?
Gladiator baseball and everybody old enough to vote already had three strikes before the law was passed, nobody votes anyway, on my block.
Everybody respects the dead, but nobody respects the living. Peace can be found, only if there's enough dope around, and it's checkday. In the dope fends quest for the almighty high, he comes with the money, then he comes with the drag, then if all else fails, he comes with the strap, and wonders why the last thought he had, was lead, going through his head. Just another day, on my block.
Funny, my little brother wants to be just like me, a real "O.G.", on Death Row, and there's not much I can say cause it's just the way life is, on my block.
I guess I miss it more than life itself, but sometimes I wonder, when I think about my block, "was I ever alive in the first place?"

By Glenn Cornwell
San Quentin State Prison