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[Wilyem Clark]

Through open windows I pretend
That rain asperses me, end to end.
Delayed for days, the stormclouds crackle,
Empty the fonts of their tabernacle;
Liquid jewels now race, now dally,
Pelt the deck-boards, flood the alley,
Moisten leaf and bark and radix,
Cleanse stem and stamen, spathe and spadix;
Awnings drool and downspouts splutter,
Spates flush grit from trough and gutter;
Upturned pails fill up and dribble,
A whirligig spins with a watery wibble;
And only as I write this last line
Do the rainclouds lift and the shy stars shine.

[desiresjab]

Through open windows I pretend
That rain asperses me, end to end.
Delayed for days, the stormclouds crackle,
Empty the fonts of their tabernacle;
Liquid jewels now race, now dally,
Pelt the deck-boards, flood the alley,
Moisten leaf and bark and radix,
Cleanse stem and stamen, spathe and spadix;
Awnings drool and downspouts splutter,
Spates flush grit from trough and gutter;
Upturned pails fill up and dribble,
A whirligig spins with a watery wibble;
And only as I write this last line
Do the rainclouds lift and the shy stars shine.

Nice all over. I especially like awnings drool. Line 3 is excellent.

I have used the same bastard cousin to the sonnet a few times. There are many hybrids in my drawer. I love my little bastards.

Wibble does all right for itself for being a made up word, adding to the alliteration of the line as well as the onamatapea without raising instant objections. For me this poem hovers right at the line of being overwritten in early readings, but stubbornly recovers each time it seems ready to lapse into full overdone mode. Certainly an action poem. The final couplet is okay, it shows restraint after all the imagined action, yet somehow I feel there may be a bit more hiding almost in sight within it that brings reality back even more personally. Asperse rocks the boat immediately and feels shamelessly pedantic so early, though the word indeed has its sub-meanings and may be the perfect one for the wet fantasy you need to enact.

A rhyme like spadix and radix cannot pass unnoticed. It is so obviously contrived it is an affectation. Spots that seem to be unnatural at first, recover well on further readings and begin to feel more natural. This is an unusual quality in itself.

[Lokasenna]

This is a lovely little gem. The feeling of rain is really caught by the rhythm of the piece, and the layering of imagery here is handled very deftly.

I'm alright with 'asperse', though it is certainly an obscure choice of word - sending some readers scrabbling for a dictionary so early in such a short poem could be a bit of a hostage to fortune. Like DJ, I do also have some reservations about the spadix/radix rhyme, which feels forced compared to the rest of the poem.

The final couplet works, though it is not quite as evocative as what came before - though this might be in its favour, in actual fact.

[desiresjab]

I meant to say in my post that line 4 was excellent. Line 3 is a good line too. My eyes miscounted.

[Wilyem Clark]

Most of my poems are hastily conceived and hastily executed, with the usual risks of that technique. Wouldn't have it any other way!