New Poetry by Heather Ellyard

Brutal is the Garden

Brutal is

the garden.

Roses die

bewildered.

Mirrors break

where they stand.

Their shards

scatter

like knives.

Grief is

a sharpened

war cry

let loose

in the valley

of echoes.

A violent crop.

The map

of hope is

overlaid with

a thousand

nameless

wounds.

Brutal is

the payback.

Brutal are

the hybrid songs.

Over and over

the fruits rot.

And their seeds

tremble

in Paradise lost.

- © Heather Ellyard 2021

Heather Ellyard (HSE) is an artist/poet, born and educated in Boston USA who migrated to Australia, and became a citizen in 1985. She has held 30 solo exhibitions, nationally, and is collected publically in the NGA, the AGSA, the Federal Parliament House, the Jewish Museum of Australia etc. She has published essays in national Art Magazines and Art Books, and in Constellations Journal of  Poetry USA. She was a Finalist in the Blake Prize for Art 3 times, and in the Blake Poetry Prize in 2020. She currently lives among the granites in Central Victoria.