Timmy's World and Mine

Tim Hardin is staring at me

from a CD cover

Truly a bird on a wire,

he fell off his perch, hard

His sunken eyes defiant yet,

show the end is near,

New York in the '60s was

the fast lane with no apologies

There, the "colder children," as

Esquire magazine put it fused

folk song with junk-song.

Lean and laughing they sang a different

tune, following the golden road

which soon turned into the Lost Highway

My own particular jones was self-hatred

For some reason, though, my middle-class past -

Served me well, at least negatively speaking and

I snuck through the half-closed door of my fate

Timmy is staring, Inside I am crying.

© 1999 Danny Kalb
All Rights reserved.