OLCAY KASIMOĞLU

 

 

Tinged With Blue

 

I walked

through the muted scream

of snow steeped in red.

With every step, I entombed within myself

an echo of childhood

a forsaken joy reverberating in the hollow of time.

Yet I kept my silence,

for even the sky

had renounced its voice.

My hands shivered

not from frost, but from remembrance.

Time streamed on like a river of glass,

and I could not cradle the past

without shattering it in my grasp.

Still, from every fracture

a pulse of blue was quickened into being.

Beneath the snow, a hidden blue endured

a hope unstained by whiteness,

mingled with blood, yet immaculate.

Along the fading spoor of a dream,

a voice like a seashell pressed to the abyss of my soul

whispered:

“It is not finished…

You are the one who still breathes,

the one begotten of love.”

That blue lay cradled

in the yielding heart of the earth.

Neither war nor death,

nor the hand of ruin,

could unmake it.

And for the first time,

with my tears unmasked,

I knelt upon the snow.

I reached

and gathered that blue into my trembling palms.

Like a blossom startled into dawn,

it unfolded within me.

Its name: Hope.

Its root: Defiance.

Its color: Human.

 

In The Language Of Flowers

 

In the language of flowers,

life’s hymn still resounds.

In gardens germinated by tears,

the wind bends low to murmur to the soil,

and the waters, with invisible fingertips,

caress the fragile down of hope.

Within the dim chambers

of nameless nights,

like the revenant voice of childhood

striking against forgotten walls,

the purest longing rends the breast of time

and spills itself into a river.

Like a dewdrop in search of its own awakening,

trembling upon a thorned branch,

it bears a secret gaze

tender, breakable, incandescent.

From windows steeped in childhood,

that smile erupts

bowing among flowered curtains,

offering itself gently to the mercy of daylight.

For the memory of a single smile,

before this sky and this sea,

hold your heart

at the furthest height of blue.

Take your stand like an unblemished dream

with poems and with songs

beside the stars that kneel before the clouds.

Like a salamander ripened

in the ardor of love’s flames,

it rises from every burning

not vanquished, but transfigured.

Unmoor your heart from the ashes.

Array yourself once more in love.

Let the imprint of rebirth abide

in every word that grazes your skin.

 

OLCAY KASIMOĞLU

 

OLCAY KASIMOĞLU is a Turkish poet and writer born in Göle (Ardahan). She graduated from the Faculty of Health Sciences at Marmara University and is currently studying sociology at Istanbul University. She has written poetry collections, novels, short stories, and essays. Her works have been published in literary magazines and international anthologies, and have been translated into Spanish, English, and Persian. She is the recipient of the 2022 Literature and Labor Award. She has participated in international poetry festivals, including Femin Istanbul organized under the auspices of UNESCO. She is a member of the Turkish Writers’ Union, Turkish PEN, and the Literature Association. Her works bring together philosophical depth, social sensitivity, and metaphorical lyricism.