Tradition

[theyellowfog]

Forgive me if I'm doing this wrong. I'm still new. But I love your poem. I've come back to it many times to try and see if I could get my point across.

At first, I loved the line "sliced open its throat", and wondered if "Made murder a virtue" was the line that actually bothered me. However, upon reading deleting a lot of my critique, I think that if you took out the line "sliced open its throat", the poem would make more sense. The first stanza is all/mostly metaphors, and that line is the only sort of concrete image that you really give the reader. The rest is all metaphors, minus the part where it becomes clear the you as the narrator "refuse to hear/ that we murdered tradition". I realized that you are using "murder as a virtue" as a metaphor, as well. Although the line I'm asking you to remove is very attention grabbing and a wonderful line, I feel like it just doesn't fit with the poem. It makes it feel disjointed, in a way? If you wanted to keep that line, though, I feel like maybe something could be added somewhere around there to make it make more sense, perhaps. 

Great imagery in the second stanza. And beautiful poem overall. It makes me wonder about what traditions myself that I don't really follow anymore.

I

We’ve killed tradition;
sliced open its throat
Made murder a virtue
And dignity a sin
Made colors turn blind
music deaf
literature mute
and the canvas blank
My heart lost rhythm
And my speech lost rhyme
My thoughts have derailed
And my senses had dulled
for my ears refuse to hear
That we murdered tradition
 
II
 
There lays a body
A stiffened corpse
With lifeless eyes
Akin to that of a fish
Marked like cattle
A card sticking out
Under his left lobe
Labeled “Tradition”
And “Long overdue”