Jazz and Tango

First Movement:
I swing to the melody of your breathing.
Your eyes are jazz, and
I tango in-between your fingertips.
The music we move to is rough and earthy,
and my fingers long to twine with yours as
we begin to orchestrate our life
into a rhythm to suit us.
The jazz in your eyes romances me
and I linger in this tango
for no better reason than this;
This is life, this is music, and
this music is
life.

Second Movement:
I long to drink in the jazz
emanating from your eyes.
You play me like a saxophone,
your touch is my catalyst into this
immersion in your jazz, in your tango,
and I'll never ask for anything else.

Third Movement:
We improvise life into our music,
improvise our way through these movements.
We exchange unpolluted jazz,
and there is no static in it.
We tango on the breath of each note,
no hesitation.
and we continue until
the world is swimming in an ocean of jazz.

This is really great. I love how you express yourself, and it flows beautifully. I especially enjoyed;

"I tango in-between your fingertips."

and

"You play me like a saxophone,
your touch is my catalyst into this."

You tell the story well and I love how you've laid it out.


I think I'd cut;

"The music we move to is rough and earthy,
and "

and the "and" before "I'll never ask" as I don't think you need the latter, and the former is too much telling rather than showing.

I think the last stanza was weakest, especially the first two lines, but I did like lines 4, 6 and 9.

Jas

Jasmine Hart wrote:This is really great. I love how you express yourself, and it flows beautifully. I especially enjoyed;

"I tango in-between your fingertips."

and

"You play me like a saxophone,
your touch is my catalyst into this."

You tell the story well and I love how you've laid it out.


I think I'd cut;

"The music we move to is rough and earthy,
and "

and the "and" before "I'll never ask" as I don't think you need the latter, and the former is too much telling rather than showing.

I think the last stanza was weakest, especially the first two lines, but I did like lines 4, 6 and 9.

Jas

thanks so much for the comment!! <3 <3

I'm suprised there aren't other comments! this piece moved me like jazz and I love jazz. Your tone is smooth and it pulls upon my depths. The dance you perform is like magic and plays splendid and magnificent tricks upon my senses. Continue, continue, cease not this dance that your ink does cause me to collapse within it! Well done!

Juncboks wrote:I'm suprised there aren't other comments! this piece moved me like jazz and I love jazz. Your tone is smooth and it pulls upon my depths. The dance you perform is like magic and plays splendid and magnificent tricks upon my senses. Continue, continue, cease not this dance that your ink does cause me to collapse within it! Well done!

thanks so much for the comment!

I'd be careful how you incorporate the specific jazz and tango terms. For instance, there's the discussion of jazz in the third line, then the mention of tango in the fourth, but they're different things. And then the line "immersion in your jazz, in your tango," seems to use these words not necessarily because they're the best words to fit the line, but just to use them together. Individually, I like the lines where these things are personified or made tangible. "Your eyes are jazz" is a wonderful phrase, as is "we tango on the breath of each note" but when they're placed right next to each other, as they often are, both lose quite a bit of their own light. Don't only watch out for these phrases, but watch out for specific instances of each word as well.

Other words to be careful with are any form of 'orchestra' 'rhythm' 'music' 'life' because they're always used somewhere near each other in musical topics, and then that just becomes a bunch of strung together topics rather than something that really says something new. This is the reason that the third stanza/movement is so lovely, because it's about the topics of jazz and tango themselves, rather than bogging them down with musical terminology.

We exchange unpolluted jazz

^ This is my favorite line in the whole poem.

Happy writing!

Hi! I'm not that good with poetry, but I'll do my best to give a helpful review anyway.

I agree with... *goes off to check who said it* ...Leja in that you need to watch out for when you use "tango" and when you use "jazz." I think (but am not sure) that every time you say "jazz" you are referring to his eyes, and every time you say "tango" you're referring to the dance they're doing. Also, because they are obviously a recurring theme (and even the title of the piece) I think you should go more into them. For example, the only thing you really say about his eyes is the jazz, which gives a wonderful image in my head while reading... but still, is there anything else about his eyes that are remarkable? And how are they jazzy?

...Okay, I just realized that that isn't what Leja was saying at all. XD

Anyway, you have some beautiful lines in here. I think my favorites are:

I tango in-between your fingertips.

Because it feels to light and worming and... tango-ish. ^_^

We exchange unpolluted jazz,

Because I'm not quite sure what you're saying, but love it all the same.

PM me if I was unclear about anything!
Hope this helps somewhat.
~Azila~

Hey there!

First of all I would like to congratulate you for a title so catchy I wanted to get to the poem right away.

"Your eyes are jazz," --> the loveliest line in the poem, great imagery

"This is life, this is music, and

this music is

life. " --> somewhat cliché, but ah! so pretty!

"I long to drink in the jazz" --> this one left me thinking. Did you mean you want to have a drink in the jazz, like it was a place, or did you mean you want to drink the jazz? I'd like to think it is the latter, but in that case it should be "drink the jazz", shouldn't it?

But I liked this one, much indeed. I see black and red and floating hems in it, and it's just great. Good job.

Demeter xx

thanks to everyone who's commited so far!!
leja- yeah, i definitely agree with you about like the bogging down w/ musical terminology thing and about the lines with personification.
azila- you know i value anything you have to say and you're actually pretty good with commenting on poetry, especially because you don't write any. at least, i don't think you do...
demeter-and thank you so much!