ARZU CURA ALTUNBULAK

 

The Matrix

they peeled off the blue dreams in layers

wounds opened in the sky

god’s tears are red

an ancient gaze, perhaps fallen leaves

roots hidden in the earth; branches exiled to the sun

an accelerated transformation is desired without question

trees, step by step, in the shadows of women

cracked, vast, the human flood blazes

the matrix reloads every yesterday

every tomorrow is gone now

1/0

the world is seen through the eyes of an elephant

its taste is seaweed, its tongue stretches into eternity

we plant yesterdays that we will enlarge in fiber pots

an owl’s hoot on a broken chair, sleep

a garden within a garden, a dream within a dream

a sip of water by the bedside hid in the darkness

the retrospective of each era is physics

the world turns to orthodox politics

you exist once, you are absent a thousand times, one or zero

distribute your existence to your nothingness

and be silent.

ARZU CURA ALTUNBULAK

ARZU CURA ALTUNBULAK was born in Yalova. She graduated from the Department of Chemistry at METU. Currently, she lives in Yalova, Türkiye. Her poems have been published in various journals such as Varlık, İstasyon, Lacivert Dergi, Akatalpa, Sincan İstasyonu, Bavul, Masa, Orlando Poetry, Psikesinema, Kanon2010, Cüneyne, Çayyolu, Yazı-Yorum, Femtrak, Öyle Olsun, Asonans. She also contributed her poems to compilation books like Aşk ve Gökyüzü and Canım Gökyüzüm published under the Social Goodness Foundation. In September 2022, her first poetry book, Güzün Islak Sesi, was published by Anima Yayınları. Her poem "Günah Çatladı," written for Mahsa Amini and all the murdered women, was published in the Honar and Jamee “Society and Art” magazines in Tabriz, Iran, in Farsi. In June 2023, it was published in the "Newsnjeju Magazine" in South Korea, in August 2023, in Poemame Revista in Spain, and in September 2022, her poem Kanatsız Kuşlar was translated into English, Spanish, and Korean and published in Varlık Dergisi. In May 2024, her second poetry book, Çekilen Dalgalar, will be published by Pikareks Yayınevi. She is a member of the Turkish Writer’s Union.