A published novelist between 1984 and 1996 in North America, the UK, Australasia, Netherlands and Sweden (pen-name Elizabeth Gibson), Lizzie Ballagher now writes poetry rather than fiction. Her work has been featured in a variety of magazines and webzines: Nine Muses, Nitrogen House, the Ekphrastic Review, South-East Walker Magazine, Far East, and Poetry Space.
She lives in southern England, writing a blog at
https://lizzieballagherpoetry.wordpress.com/.
Goldfinch in Holly
No winter fire burns in June’s steep holly tree:
berries jolly as rubies in deep December
are now in summer’s richest green.
So far no angels’ cradle-songs swaddle the holly tree:
on the topmost leaves no thorny star
has yet begun to shine.
A spark ignites—coal-black, yellow, scarlet fire:
a goldfinch flares up, lights the holly
and in a trilling, frenzied blaze of song
burnishes the highest leaf-points,
bursts out bright as a supernova
singing new & rolling summer carols.
Lizzie Ballagher
True Builders by Lizzie Ballagher
Blackcurrants by Lizzie Ballagher