Edit 1

The drips tick and tap my windshield
as obedient wipers erase all impact
of rain drops' final self expression

streaming down glass ending in amorphous puddles.

Why should rain rise in battle
against gravity
in conquest of vain glimpses of the Sun
merely to crash back to murk?


OG

The drips tick and tap my windshield
as obedient wipers erase all impact
of rain drops' final act of expression

Streaming down my glass ending in a lifeless puddle

Why should rain wage battles
against gravity,
rising in a cloud to glimpse the Sun
only to crash back to murk?

(01-01-2016, 02:20 PM)Qdeathstar Wrote:  The drips tick and tap my windshield .... "drips" here is an obvious elegant variation in the Fowlerian sense, on "drops" in the next line. Suggest stick to the more logical "drops"

as obedient wipers erase all impact .... Unnecessary personification in "obedient".
of rain drops' final act of expression

Streaming down my glass ending in a lifeless puddle....."lifeless" meaning "unmoving" here, but because raindrops don't have actual life, the tragic undertone rings false.

Why should rain wage battles ... Suggest "battle"
against gravity,
rising in a cloud to glimpse the Sun
only to crash back to murk? ... Isn't murk = mist? So shouldn't it be "into the mud" instead of "into the mist"? Clouds are mist, mostly.

(01-01-2016, 02:20 PM)Qdeathstar Wrote:  The Drips tick and tap on my windshield (Drops may work better as ronsaik pointed out)
as obedient wipers erase all impact
of rain drops' final act of expression I really like this stanza. My above suggestions work with plural, but I wonder if it may be better talking about one single rain drop and have that follow through the whole poem. 

Streaming down my glass ending in a lifeless puddle

Why should rain wage battles
against gravity,
rising in a cloud to glimpse the Sun
only to crash back to murk?

I wonder if it may sound better like this:

A drop taps on my windshield
as obedient wipers erase all impact
of a rain drop's final act of expression.

Streaming down my glass
into a lifeless puddle
where other drops have fallen.

Why should rain wage battles

against gravity,
rising in a cloud to glimpse the Sun
only to crash back to murk?

I don't mean to do an entire rewrite for you or anything; I just had a couple of ideas and I hope there is something from this you may like.  

Overall, I enjoyed your poem

Emma

(01-01-2016, 02:20 PM)Qdeathstar Wrote:  The drips tick and tap my windshield
as obedient wipers erase all impact
of rain drops' final act of expression

I am a bit undecided about this first stanza. On one hand, I disagree with Emma and ronsaik about using "drops" in the first line. I think the stanza sounds measurably worse with the word "drops" repeated like that. On the other hand, I do agree that "drips" doesn't make a whole lot of sense with respect to "tick and tap". If you use the word drips in that first line, "tick and tap" should probably be replaced by verbs that express less the way the rain hits the windshield and more the way it flows down the windshield. So something like "The drips flow down my windshield", or something evoking a similar image. This would also connect neatly with the next line:

Streaming down my glass ending in a lifeless puddle

I like this image, just not the phrasing. I think it would sound better as just "Streaming into a lifeless puddle",  or "Streaming down my glass into a lifeless puddle", or something like "Streams ending in a lifeless puddle". 

Why should rain wage battles
against gravity,
rising in a cloud to glimpse the Sun
only to crash back to murk?

I'm not a huge fan of "crash back to murk", but overall I like this stanza. I feel like, if you are the type prone to classical allusions, this would be a good opportunity for an Icarus reference. The idea that the clouds get too close to the sun and come crashing back down to Earth.

(01-01-2016, 02:20 PM)Qdeathstar Wrote:  The drips tick and tap my windshield
as obedient wipers erase all impact
of rain drops' final act of expression (I am going to suggest cutting drops here and have it as rain's final act...)

Streaming down my glass ending in a lifeless puddle

Why should rain wage battles (I suggest substituting water here for rain in the spirit of word variation)
against gravity,
rising in a cloud to glimpse the Sun
only to crash back to murk?

Well initially I felt a little outrage for all this negativity toward rain lol...Seriously I do not know if you intend this or not, but for me this is a metaphor for depression and getting up to try again only to have one shitty thing happen just when you think something good is going to happen (that glimpse of sun) and then your leg gets torn off or something.  The question is, why bother?

I suppose the answer lies in the true nature of rain and the puddle.  We need rain, it nurtures and grows life and is integral...just like a person...And somehow this cycle that seems so futile is somehow growth providing.

So I enjoy the metaphor   .  And I think your title is excellent.

The metaphor you've chosen to interrogate futility is both apt and evocative. Rain on windshields is almost universally appreciable to readers.

That said, you have some issues with continuity, and an slightly awkward dissonance between Rain as a perpetual and life sustaining cycle, and a Drop as the individual act of futility you are exploring. This is not an insurmountable problem at all. it only requires you to frame those two aspects clearly. 

I've noted below where I think you have issues and how you could adapt to resolve.

(01-01-2016, 02:20 PM)Qdeathstar Wrote:  The drips tick and tap my windshield i agree with other's observations of drips and drops as requiring some adaptation. how exactly, I'll leave to you. 
as obedient wipers erase all impact lovely internal rhyme with tap
of rain drops' final act of expression I think you need punctuation of some form here, rather than running into your next stanza.

Streaming down my glass ending in a lifeless puddle the drop's end may be lifeless, but a puddle is most definitely not. Needs rearranging. 

Why should rain wage battles you can wage war, but battles sounds awkward to me. Fight battles perhaps.
against gravity,
rising in a cloud to glimpse the Sun
only to crash back to murk? Murk is an odd, but wonderfully effective choice.

Please forgive the rewrite, but to address my points, you could adapt along the lines of the following;

The rain ticks and taps my windshield
as obedient wipers erase all impact
of each drop's final expression;

streaming down my glass ending 
lifeless in a puddle.
 
Why should they fight battles
in the war rain wages
on gravity;
rising as cloud to glimpse the Sun
only to crash back to murk?


Please do not take this critique as a negative, I thoroughly enjoyed your piece, and will keep an eye out for any edits. Really looking forward to seeing how you develop this.

Well done.

(01-01-2016, 02:20 PM)Qdeathstar Wrote:  The drips tick and tap my windshield
as obedient wipers erase all impact
of rain drops' final act of expression

Streaming down my glass ending in a lifeless puddle

Why should rain wage battles
against gravity,
rising in a cloud to glimpse the Sun
only to crash back to murk?

I like the style of it, except there is no transition between the content of the single line and the last stanza. I like both, but there is no connection to show how they work together in the piece as a whole.

I wonder if you could weave personification into this poem. Perhaps the perspective of the windscreen wipers could be explored, as well as tweaking the rhythm to match the sound of a rain and the relentless wipers.

Futility

The drips tick and tap my windshield
as obedient wipers erase all impact
of rain drops' final self expression

streaming down glass ending in amorphous puddles.

Why should rain rise in battle
against gravity
in conquest of vain glimpses of the Sun
merely to crash back to murk?

Is "vane" supposed to be a pun?

no, I fucked up

edit. But hey, maybe it works....

[quote='Qdeathstar' pid='201912' dateline='1451625651']
Edit 1

The drips tick and tap my windshield
as obedient wipers erase all impact
of rain drops' final self expression ----------not sure if I like the use of self expression.  Is this word usage appropriate if the rain drops are, as it states in the third stanza, rising to battle?

streaming down glass ending in amorphous puddles. I like 'amorphous puddles'

Why should rain rise in battle
against gravity
in conquest of vain glimpses of the Sun  I do not like 'vain glimpses', a confusing term.  
merely to crash back to murk?


I found this an enjoyable read. What I like the most is the hard consonant sounds of words like tick, impact, back and murk.  As a reader, the sounds helped create the experience of driving in a downpour (what fun), specifically hard rain on the windshield.  However, as stated above, in the third stanza the rain is referenced as a battle, which does't carry over quite neat coming from stanza one.  Overall, nice sounding, succinct, and effective.   

best,

-Nick

I think asking questions weaken a poem. Doesn't the writer already know the answer, and if not, does he expect to get it from an audience who cannot respond? Why not make it a statement, does it lose anything?


Best,


dale

Erthona,

I had considered this as an alternate:

Why should rain rise in battle
against gravity?
To capture vain glimpses of the Sun
merely to crash back to murk.


However, I might also view the question has rhetorical, since the way the question is framed, the reader
know what the speaker thinks already.

Brujo, thanks for reading. Could you please explain what you mean with the regards to self expresion and rising in battle? A reading it now perhaps vain glimpses is also slightly tongue twister so I'll see what I can do about that.

I don't mind the question if it is answered. i do think rhetorical questions are best left to those who practice rhetoric, that is a speaker who wishes to get a crowd going. That's how such things are usually used, I have never found them to be effective in poems.  Your poem.

dale

(01-26-2016, 09:43 AM)Qdeathstar Wrote:  Brujo, thanks for reading. Could you please explain what you mean with the regards to self expresion and rising in battle?  A reading it now perhaps vain glimpses is also slightly tongue twister so I'll see what I can do about that.

I think a different word there could garner more of a emotional response from the reader.  The poem goes from observing rain's "Final self-expression" (I'm assuming a suicide-like action) to the rain fighting for a meaningless cause. I can kind of see a connection there, but still find it difficult to bring S1 and S3 together.  

Hope that helps.