RAIN, in patches and ebbs,
turns heavy like a waterfall
and the mud
slides down from hills and yards
Water pools deep
over the pavement
and underpasses
Mud crawls along the surface
indifferent to property markers,
border fences,
metal girders on half-built highrises
People with no homes
are herded towards buses
by men in heavy orange coats
People with homes stay in them
or drive towards them
through puddles
growing into pools
The concept of a bright sun city
hunkers down or floats away
Assert emergency,
initiate contact...
From my car, then from my apartment,
I tune to the information channels
which tell people
where not to go
The stable streets of the city
slip into the dirt,
mass and movement,
person and perception
altered, sliding
Mark Wallace lives in San Diego, where since 2005 he has been working on a multi-part long poem exploring the psychogeography of southern California, The End of America, sections of which have been published in a number of journals and books and chapbooks, most recently The End of America 8 (Glovebox Books, 2023). He is the author of many other books of poetry, including Notes from the Center on Public Policy (2014) and Felonies of Illusion (2008), as well as several books of fiction, including the novels Crab (2017) and The Quarry and the Lot (2011).