Rats Crouched by Seas (a reverie for unreal autumns)

Later than September, or October. November then, or perhaps some other month that lies behind November, like a shadow, or a follower.
A geography of an interior urban-occult landscape; tall and narrow houses set far back from the road, hidden behind bushes and decades-old trees. Wet leaves caught on branches flung down by the wind.
Under the lamplight pools, they look like rats, crouched by miniature seas.
Raining of course. It always rains in this unreal season.
Walking the Sunday roads, watching the roadside river, the puddle-seas around blocked up drains, this Hades-entrance clogged up by sycamore leaves.
I think of that undersea city; a sewage-pipe Atlantis, a R'lyeh of overflow drains and Victorian plumbing.
Closer to the tiny parades of shops these unwatched (but watching) suburbs always lead to, the front gardens of the houses grow smaller. Fade away till they are swallowed by the bricks of the house.
We are left now with an architecture of steamy pipes and the smells of cooking. Yellow light from the front room kitchens spilling out onto the pavement.
In the night-rain, the light is like liquid.
Only shadows move in these rooms, and I could turn to watch them but I do not and walk on.
My footsteps are lost in the tides.