The speaker is weighed down by a grey, private misery, and the November rain stands in for it. Early on he describes his soul as a clogged gutter and his thoughts as chaotic and overheated, burning him from the inside. Stargazing and big ideas don't soothe him. His pain is physical, a churning stomach and aching eyes, yet he hides it behind a face everyone knows as "Douglas Blazek."
The poem then widens to the world. Cars, old women shopping, and a hollow street feel dreary and mechanical. The speaker sees a planet where war, hunger, and weapons are excused as necessary, and he notes how close "kiss" is to "kill."
The ending shifts a little. The rain is just rain, not catastrophe, and the street turns soft and almost alive with traffic lights. His soul still drifts toward the drainage ditch, but that becomes "the only map I understand." The mood is bleak and anxious, with a thin, uneasy calm at the close.