The Best of Times
[Jackie]
A book store, a fair, a music hall, park
Everywhere I went I saw her
At a circus, run-down, on the outskirts of town
We sat down and started talking

The hours stop, the days unwind
At a quarter to the best of times

In hindsight, I wish the sweet painful bliss
Of seduction had drawn out longer
‘Cause we fell in fast, fell hard, and the world spun past
Like a waltz that swept along us

The hours stop, the days unwind
At five-to the best of times

From money she came, weekends in those days
Our soirees were the wildest in town
The inspired, the mad, the thinkers, the poets
All laughed, raised a glass, and whirled past
The hours stop, the days unwind
It’s precisely now the best of times

But, times, they darken
The purges had started
On the day they came
Dorothy was taken

The doors all were locked
The parties all stopped
I learned to drink scotch
In a dark room, forsaken

Years passed, but then, I saw her again
Sewing clothes in a room without fans
She didn’t know me
She couldn’t you see
In her eyes, something missed
There’s a trick with a pick
The doctor gives it a nick
It makes you docile, real quick

The hours stop, the days unwind
Moments pass, memories sigh
At half-passed the best of times