The River Bridge

In slow, undulating lines
the River Bridge presents
a city center reeks
of spilt-blood offerings
pressure of connections
pulled into place; talk
of Venus & Mars
waving The Big Dipper.

The River Bridge demarcates
a night crawling with strangers
unable to account for
their own significance.
Review a patch of sky
free of planets & stars, one
reserved specially for them,
an awful truth calls home.

Geoff Leone's Questions:

Is the use of mythology (astronomy) in the first stanza obtrusive?

The stanzas originally were organized arsy-versy. Is the second stanza clearly the natural ending?

Misterioso

I miss - I don't miss - winter's
coolest nights threaten
to pull all blankets to itself.
Rising at noon, squawking
for coffee, the papers - or you'll never
taste the leg of the duck again!

I miss - I don't miss -
long, cool evenings where
our limbs tangle together
beneath a light sheet. Simplicity
peoples a make-believe world
with civility one appears
and disappears, with
a single wave of the hand.

I miss - I don't miss - autumn
evenings return at my windowpane,
fill up early with nothing,
nothing at all! Sudden streetlights
banish moon & stars,
darkness make twice dark.

Geoff Leone's Questions:

Have the repititions validity? Do they begin to grate?

Is there a sense of reworked material here, or fresh surprise from stanza to stanza?