Two Poems By Craig Dobson

Honey

The edges of ordinary things
hammer Icarus wings against
the light. Tired, older than 
I’ve ever known how to be,
I try to save from leaking jars
stored in unsuitable places
what should have sweetened
a pharaoh’s tomb – its colour 
deepening in the greedy dark
until some jemmy iron’s raid 
or precise scientific blade cut 
into black old time, and from
that ancient’s wounded blessing,
oozed this deathless, golden need.

Drive

What if I told you the busy road
outside my house spoke its traffic
suddenly: ran from the beginning
of their journey to the span of hopes
each driver told, without an inch
of motion? Became an endless 
sentence flow: worded cars, truck
shout, motorbikes’ long inflection?
And, huddled before the altar’s
ceaseless roar, unmoving folk, 
knees bent in rows an awkward 
foot above the tar, surprised 
at how similar their attitudes, 
how driven every prayer?

Craig’s had poems published in The London Magazine, Poetry Ireland Review, The Rialto, North, The Literary Hatchet, Stand, Magma, Poetry Salzburg Review, Poetry Daily, THINK, The Rat’s Ass Review and The Dark Horse.