I take
this thistle
like I take these words,
I trim the thorns at times for desire
to be softer, sweeter, so lines can be calmer,
cleaner. I seek out the heart of the whole, for now,
for here, for this moment, for the sentiment of this song
that comes for but a season. I seek not branch nor stem, but the life
that lingers where flavour is found, where thoughts flow freer upon the page,
no longer rooted under rock, no longer locked under fear. I pierce through firm flesh
like this pen plots it’s point into the page, holding out not for the green flesh pleading for a place in purple but for the truth buried beneath the skin we have learnt to thicken,

toughen.

I cut away
at words wasteful
and suck the substance
of the tale from the source

below the scale.

All words and photography By Damien B. Donnelly

28th poem for National Poetry Writing Month

Lunch today was homemade mayonnaise and steamed artichokes and so came the poem