1. |
Water Music
00:50
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Water Music
The words are a beautiful music.
The words bounce like in water.
Water music,
loud in the clearing
off the boats,
birds, leaves.
They look for a place
to sit and eat---
no meaning,
no point.
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2. |
The Carnival
00:56
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The Carnival
Whereas the man who hits
the gong disproves it,
in all its simplicity
Even so the attempt
makes for triumph in
another man.
Likewise in love I am not foolish or incompetent.
My method is not a
tenderness, but hope
defined.
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3. |
Zero
02:16
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Zero
Not just nothing,
not there's no answer,
not it's nowhere or
nothing to show for it.
It's like There's no past like
the present. It's
all over with us.
There are no doors.
Oh my god! Like
I wish I had a dog.
Oh my god!
I had a dog but he's gone.
His name was Zero,
something for nothing!
Do you like dog biscuits?
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4. |
The Measure
00:38
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The Measure
I cannot
move backward
or forward.
I am caught
in the time
as measure.
What we think
of we think of.
of no other reason
we think than
just to think,
each for himself.
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5. |
Jack's Blues
01:18
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Jack’s Blues
I’m going to roll up
a monkey and smoke it, put
an elephant in the pot, I’m going out
and never come back.
What’s better than that.
Lying on your back, flat
on your back with your
eyes to the view.
Oh the view is blue, I saw that
too, yesterday and you,
red eyes and blue,
funked.
I’m going to roll up
a rug and smoke it, put
the car in the garage and I’m
gone, like a sad old cadillac.
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6. |
The Rhythm
01:32
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The Rhythm
It is all a rhythm,
from the shutting
door, to the window
opening,
the seasons, the sun’s
light, the moon,
the oceans, the
growing of things,
the mind in men
personal, recurring
in them again,
thinking the end
is not the end, the
time returning,
themselves dead but
someone else coming.
The little children
grow only to old men.
The grass dries,
the force goes.
But it met by another
returning, oh not mine,
not mine, and
in turn dies.
The rhythm which projects
from itself continuity
bending all its force
from window to door,
from ceiling to floor,
light at the opening,
dark at the closing.
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7. |
The End
01:34
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The End.
When I know what people think of me
I am plunged into my loneliness.
The grey hat bought earlier sickens.
I have no purpose no longer distinguishable.
A feeling like being choked
enters my throat.
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Thomas Oboe Lee Cambridge, Massachusetts
Thomas Oboe Lee was born in China in 1945. He lived in São Paulo, Brazil, for six years before coming to the United States in 1966. After graduating from the University of Pittsburgh, he studied composition at the New England Conservatory and Harvard University. He has been a member of the music faculty at Boston College since 1990. ... more
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