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Devin Ortiz Oct 2016
New Orleans, the French Quarter
Her eyes illuminate in the streets
Jazz bands dance with her spirit
As the enchantment of the night begins

Her soul, out of body, out of mind
Like water, boundless, dances with devils
Under street lamps, in our world
Marionette strings sever into liberation

Oh! What freedom, to be, to exist
As an experience, unable to be captured
Not by the words that bind her to the pages,
Nor world which demands of her

All the while she knows,
She doesn't owe it a **** thing.
Mosh Microbiomes Oct 2016
Trumpet made that jazzy sound
Anywhere is fine, noisy and not alone
Solace because the daydreams have ended
Away from trouble which is mostly my phone

Grey eyes gripping blue fairy lights; faces locked
Last call for drinks and the Trumpet stopped
Aggressively aware of the small room in between
Embraced the truth with a soul that's clean
Daisy Vallely Oct 2016
Her blue hips carry me into her womb,
where the melody of her crashing waves sound like the notes of an ethereal harp dancing through the chilled evening air.
Among all the lost messages in glass bottles floating through a liquid eternity, one read the name of her lover,
who ripped her heart from the sea.
Eventually, each bottle washed up into the arms the shore,
Yet,
The bottle that contained her lover’s name remained in the curves of the ocean, traveling through her body's maze.

My heart breaks at the sound of her faint, musical wheeping.
So I am with her, within her cold, salted embrace.
Submerged,
I open my burning eyes to watch her story.
I love the way her current cradles me with aching love-
And now I can see
That the strength within her current,
Can wash away the grief of a fractured heart.


© 2016 D.M.V
Jason Harris Sep 2016
After the 24th revolution of the longhand
on the clock, the radio plays bossa nova jazz
all night and me, I sit awake in an empty
studio replaying the day in my head as I

row alone across the lake of my notebook
as some now-deceased artist sings about
a 17-year old girl living on Montenegro St.
as beads of moonlight drip from the blade

of the paddle back into the lake as my arms
push and pull and push and pause mid-row
to catch the rhythm and blues of solitude.
Patrick McCombs Sep 2016
Lost in the labyrinth of words
Cigarette carelessly perched
In between her fingers
Smoke rising and swaying
To the jazz
That made the room heavy
With deep contemplation
No one spoke
No one dared to break the silence
To disrupt the voyage
Into our own minds
SassyJ Aug 2016
The conversational instrumentals
reply to each other harmoniously
the drum pounds,the rumbles pumps
as the skyline shine on mountains

The cas cas attach the drifty clouds
the C major smiles inside the beats
melodies of the G clef arrest the rest
a spell of keyboard appraised in praise

The trumpet screams as a saint
on the shadows of the lighted hall
the wall on the edge of the mall
a fusion of hope the unsung treaties

In the west the sound of the ancestors
appease my piece, to seek a forgone peace
inside the overrated and haunted world
of indifference and utter misfortune
Collins Jul 2016
You remind me of Jazz.

The way you sway in and out of my mind.
So gently.
So boldly.
The way you pull me along with the pining in your voice.
Lulling me in to memories of our false Joy.
JR Rhine Jun 2016
Thomas, Tommy baby,
you are both hot,
and sweet.

Tom Cat you’re red hot--
when I catch you in your Tom Cat Strut,
sauntering across campus,
strolling like it ain’t no thing,

cuz it don’t meant a thing
if it ain’t got that swing baby.

So dig this, Tommy Gun,
you groove with the best of ‘em
when I spot you strollin’—

Your head, teetering left and right like a seesaw, boppin’ baby,
arms hangin’ loosely, swinging freely, wildly, go! go!
legs scooping forward in boisterous trombone slides--
Groooooove Tommy baby!

You’re Louis’s best blows--
ten feet from the mic and the Fives baby,
you’re hot, red hot,
any closer and I'll burn up!
Go!

But you’re cool, real cool,
and oh so sweet.
Super sweet--

in your beard like a pepper and salt shaker tossed across the table,
I look to see those rosy lips part,
and peep those pearly whites shinin' like the bell of Louis’s cornet
brandished in the air, under those ballroom lights--
you’re screamin’ Tommy!

Let me hear that laugh that shakes the room,
punches like Blakey’s bass drum,
thumps like Mingus--

T-Bird you’ve got that hard bop in your soul,
you’re gonna bop to the top TB,
into the third heaven where the angels fall in line to your swing,
that incessant strut that keeps the devil at bay,
Blow! Blow! Blow!

And I see you now Tom Cat,
up there in the clouds,
digging your way across eternity,
bopping and jiving, swinging and blowing,

in your faded khaki pants and worn tennis shoes,
loosely buttoned collared shirt,
tight rectangular glasses that glistened the bell of your eyes even more--
I gotta stand twenty feet away Tommy baby!

You glance down at me and wink,
rearing your head back to let loose that Mingus and Blakey
bottom-end laugh,
guffaw guffaw guffaw!!!

--so hearty and rich,
the backbone of every nervous first-year classroom,
and the sniggering seniors you continued to befuddle and dazzle
with your mysterious ways
and insatiable swing.

So blow, Tommy Gun, blow!
Go Tom Cat go!
Dig T-Bird dig!
Let loose Tommy boy!

Swing for us, swing swing swing--
Hot and Sweet, Tommy baby,
hot and sweet.
For my professor, mentor, and dear friend, Thomas Barrett. You're hot and sweet Tommy baby, rest easy. Keep boppin. Thanks for everything.
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