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Inside & Terrified

by Bob Hillman

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1.
I often dream of candlelight The flame of human appetite Bluish-yellow, flickering at night Incandescent, breathing space Partially illuminates The restlessness and hunger in your face Maria, Maria, Maria Later on, I watch you drift In and out of consciousness Murmuring, in obvious distress Undergoing – privately - The usual anxiety The movement of your lips bewitches me Maria, Maria, Maria Buried under/bundled up in blankets Eyes shut tight against an old, familiar ache The fear that you will have to face the future, fully awake But the future has been written, we Receive it on our morning walk Serious and colorful in chalk Words and pictures brought to you By cheerful sidewalk artists who Have never seen or even heard of blue Maria, Maria, Maria I won’t call today a celebration I don’t have a plan to make a plan to understand You can fight through the nights in Fantasyland
2.
I’m going out to the Great Highway Where I can almost see the stars And then surrender to abstraction When the road is closed to cars Without the constant flow of traffic It has begun collecting sand You get the sense that Mother Nature Has regained the upper hand This is wild land This is wild land Forces we will never govern or withstand This is wild land There have been accidental drownings When people exercise their right To go out swimming in the ocean All alone and late at night This is wild land This is wild land Reassess your expectations, what you planned This is wild land Strangely, I feel safer after dark When fellow travelers seek refuge in the park But I take comfort in the wind I’m elemental and second-skinned I tend to navigate by instinct Or by the blinking traffic light That has been stripped of all its meaning But is never black and white This is wild land This is wild land I accept that I may never understand This is wild land Wild land
3.
Four years ago They proposed a wall To regulate immigration We agonized Sharply polarized And organized demonstrations Oh, how far the righteous fall Now, I’m in favor of a wall Six weeks ago No one could foresee Compulsory isolation Please, hide away Disappear, they say In honor of self-preservation Regulations, protocol Now, I’m in favor of a wall Two months from now We will re-emerge Having postponed our vacations Tourists in bars And on cable cars Still ill-advised celebration Experts say: delay, forestall Now, I’m in favor of a wall I wonder why Multitudes deny The scientific consensus While I think about How to keep them out A whole population resents us It’s a controversial call Now, I’m in favor of a wall Now, I’m in favor of a wall
4.
I’m exhilarated by a super moon On San Bruno Mountain in the afternoon It’s a pagan relic from antiquity And a number system that will always be Lately, I have seen the sky infrequently, but I know It will wait. We’ll celebrate. There’s always the afterglow There’s always the afterglow In terms of lunar cycles, it’s a lonely phase Apathetic mornings, melancholy days Are an invitation: see me re-invest In the fundamentals, in self-interest In details of coastal trails in pushing the altitude Breathing in where air is thin to possibly be renewed To possibly be renewed I am interested in a future state Where, with care and feeding, we re-integrate With improved perception, at a different speed Social intuition having atrophied People who adopted new philosophies one by one People who will only do whatever they’ve always done Whatever they’ve always done In the early morning, I become obsessed Reading up on contact and connectedness Sympathetic strangers are my spirit guides And, in combination, atmospheric tides I can speak but voices leak in particles, parts of speech Through the wall, outside, and all the way out to Ocean Beach All the way out to Ocean Beach
5.
We holed up here For the whole of a year Under orders to shelter in place On house arrest Irritated, obsessed With detachment and personal space New shades of blue through the window Maybe an oversupply You came by but I was inside and terrified Viral decay Is a game children play Every day in the yard after school They act afraid And the winners evade A tenacious, deranged molecule It’s impolitic when a “victim” Acts like he might want to cry You came by but I was inside and terrified We read the news And absorb interviews In pursuit of applicable facts All sorts of mis- Information persist By the graces of partisan hacks I wish we were free in the evenings When phobias preoccupy You came by but I was inside and terrified I went outside With my kids, for a ride From the Sunset to Saint Francis Wood Strangers advise: We are now jeopadiz- -ing the safety of their neighborhood Acquaintances talk on the sidewalk We beat it home on the fly You came by but I was inside and terrified

credits

released September 18, 2020

Bob Hillman: acoustic guitar, lead and harmony vocals (2, 4)
Jonny Flaugher: bass
Jay Bellerose: drums, percussion
David Levita: nylon-string guitar
Jon Gilutin: piano
Paul Cartwright: violin, viola
Christof Knoche: clarinet, bass clarinet
Oliver Kraus: cello
Jordan Katz: trumpet, flugelhorn
Maria Taylor: harmony

Produced by Jonny Flaugher
Mixed by Bill Mims/Mims Recording
Mastered by Rainer Gembalczyk/Sienna Digital

Cover art by Tim Robinson

All songs by Bob Hillman ©2020 Lap Cat Music (ASCAP)

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Bob Hillman San Francisco, California

Bob Hillman is navigating the second act of a career that began in the late 90s, flourished in the early 00s, survived ten years of “real jobs,” and resumed in 2016 with the Peter Case- produced Lost Soul.

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