4 a.m.

[Magpie]

Excellent thread, I love how we can talk so much about a short poem like this. I'm in the same camp as Mark in that I agonise over these in trying to find the perfect place for the perfect word and then once that is done I agonise over punctuation, should it be a comma or a dash. There is a danger that one can become so absorbed that one loses sight of what the original intention was. 

A lot of this can come down to taste in what is right or wrong. I like bowl of light; but who is right? It's all subjective.
I definitely agree with Mark in writing a.m. as am, no-one will trip over whether it is technically right or not. If it was 5am then perhaps people might wonder who Sam is, but...

you wrote -

Half-moon horizon
bowl of light
tipped over in the haze,
4 a.m. again.


Now that your not sticking with 5-7-5 it makes it slightly easier (I think) - so many possibilities and that can be a problem

Half-moon bowl of light
tipped over the horizon
- 4am again


Half-moon bowl of light
spills out a dead haze
- once more 4am


and so on...


write a few versions that you like and then give it a week and come back to it and it will sometimes seem obvious which one is right. I like all the versions and they all have their unique qualities.
Sometimes I think it's easier to write a long poem - ironically it seems like less work.

Mark