I would describe the speaker’s mood as mocking when he continues to describe his life around him and the repeated use of the word beautiful to describe everything.
Leaves in the gutter and salt stains on shoes is more interesting than flowers as an example of beauty as it goes more in depth with the life around the poet, it also gives you a closer look to what the poet is trying to imply.
The effect of the poet’s use of similes is to elaborate what he says and the description of how the raindrops look and to exaggerate the appearance of the raindrops to make it sound more dramatic. This technique adds to the overall feeling of the poem because the similes can be considered cheesy and the feeling given in this poem is that the people around him can come across as fake.
In the poem, what actually happens is there’s a storm and he begins to explain the beauty within it and within his community. What I know about the speaker’s life based on this poem is that he is mimicking society around him, and how that everyone considers everything to be beautiful, giving a sense of falseness, when in reality there are things in life that aren’t always considered beautiful.