Poem : Cockshut

Civil Twilight in Manhattan

Twilight is my favorite time of the day.

It is so cleanly between two things. So present in its liminal nature. It feels like water starting to tide. This is probably why it has a history of being "magical" or "important".

In Hinduism it is advised not to eat in this time period as the Asuras are most active at this time in their battle with the Devas. To gain power from mutability seems incredibly useful.

There are three kinds of twilight: Civil, Nautical, and Astronomical. Civil twilight is the period after sunset when things are still fully distinguishable by the naked eye, it is also called the blue hour. Nautical twilight is the period after Civil twilight when sailors can still distinguish a horizon to take measurements for position at sea. Astronomical twilight is the last phase, it is when astronomical readings can begin. When the faintest stars begin to show through the skyglow.

Cockshut is a very old English word for twilight. It literally means - the time chickens go to sleep, when they shut up.

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Cockshut

Everything is the color of things going to sleep

and that one vein in your arm that pulses under the pillow.


In the whitespace between rooms              a filament
                                                     a gap

passes unnoticed — one single silk thread of breath.


Opposite of a rooster call — a moisture

                             sliding down a single finger of grass.


The walls grow pine needles — cooling              cooling
                                                             cooling

gently —              now —              not              so gently.

Poem-A-Day #89 : Impressive Instant

Impressive Instant

One eye on the patch of skin at the base of my neck - one on the dog being dragged across the street
its legs strung up in the leash - there is a car coming

The dog has stopped walking the man is pulling and laughing - a woman with a cigarette dangling from her mouth says that both will be hit

I feel like this moment is being binge watched - can it absorb - this compression

There is too much being held by this otherwise dull moment - in reality not much is released

The dog is fine - somewhere the man too - we finished our cocktails within the hour and the night crept over the mountains unsure of its place in the new spring

What is so interesting about décolletage - about the smell of water on dry earth - the color of whiskey floating in the corner of an eye