Jack the Sailor,

As to cliche ridden, I would cite pretty much the entire first stanza. Painfully so, to my poetic sensibilities.

A good lyric paints an image that is clearly identifiable and sustainable throughout the entire piece.

She loses her lyric image of decaying inner city/white flight when she shifts the sentiment to a homeless person lying on the street. That stanza shifts the emotional image/listeners attention to homelessness, rather than sticking with the imagery of decaying inner city/white flight to the 'burbs.

A good lyric poem has *one* image/sentiment to be effective. The third stanza doesn't belong in this song.

The ending is much stronger than the beginning, and if it was my piece, I'd cut the first and third stanzas, start with stanza 2, and move on. One might be able to salvage some of the ideas of the first stanza to extend the song, but with stanzas 2,4 & 5, with some nice bridge work and a more defined chorus, this could be a fantastic song.

How do I know how she writes? Well, of course I don't know absolutely.

I'm basing my opinion on the results, on a fairly extensive interview I heard with Ani on the radio about her writing process, and anecdotes of a friend of mine, who had the honor of putting Ani up many years ago, while she was at college--in the early Ani days. They had a long "writers conversation" over the dinner table after the gig I heard of second hand.