Bittersweet but Beautiful

Time period: 1940s, pre-Hiroshima Japan.

[004, bittersweet.]
bittersweet but beautiful.
A life in a face, how odd—
a bittersweet opus of ivory and blood.

A slender foot peeking here,
crimson lips, blackened eyelids,
dancing between scandal and tradition.

She paints herself a portrait,
body alike to canvas, she applies the medium,
chalky whiteness covers unseen flaws,
beauty so perfect as to make her cringe.

The brush is broken, fingers tremble,
a leaf passes her tiptoed walk across a Tokyo street.
The year is 1941, the girl is unknown.
She is a baker’s wife, a geisha,
a landlady, a whore.

A life in a face, yes,
a monument of predisposed indulgence.

cool. I think this is pretty kick ass. ^_^ 9/10

Hi!

This is a very powerful poem with excellent word choice and imagery. ^_^ Good work.

A life in a face, how odd—
a bittersweet opus of ivory and blood.

This part was good, but I think that if you put a period after face and start a few sentence at "how odd" that it would hit the reader more head-on.

A slender foot peeking here,
crimson lips, blackened eyelids,

I also found the first line here a little awkward. I suggest that if you put an action in the first sentence, that you add an action for the second. It sounds okay, but when I read it out-loud it sounded a little funny. Might just be a personaly thing, though.
EDIT: Oh, I see. N/mind that. What really threw me off was the comma after eyelids. Period there instead? I'm not really sure about the exact, fine-print puncuation rules in poetry...

She paints herself a portrait,
body alike to canvas, she applies the medium,

Again, I'm not sure of the exact puncuation rules in poetry, but the comma after canvas looks funny. Maybe because I'm used to reading sentences all in one line. I suggest putting a semicolon after portrait, so you'll still connect those two ideas.

beauty so perfect as to make her cringe.

I really like this line. ^^

The brush is broken, fingers tremble,

This line is nice, too.

a leaf pasts her tiptoed walk across a Tokyo street.

Is "pasts" supposed to be "passes"? Because either it's a typo or I'm not getting it. Probably the ladder.

The year is 1941, the girl is unknown.

I believe that some rules of puncuation and sentence fluency still apply to poems, though. So since this would be considered a run-on, I suggest using a semicolon or just putting periods after each sentence and then putting them on separate lines. ^_^

I also like the last line very much. It is powerful and captures the character of the geisha. Good job! It sounds very nice.

Keep on writing,
~Timea

Thank you both!

Ninja--
pasts should indeed be passes. Thanks!

Will edit.