By Serenay Ozkan

Lead distilled from the sky, a cool stain upon my brow,

As the hearts of roses beat, the vessel trembles now.

Neither the slumber of the wind nor of the sea,

A single verse; a leap across a thousand years of darkness to be.

Silence fluttering its wings in a quiet grave,

A great, shadowless coffin, gasping in the earth’s nave.

In every broken bone, a hidden sun would rise,

O, True Owner of all Realm; lull us back to sleep where peace lies!

As the cold hand of concrete strangles the slender rose,

My soul perished in the place of judgment, heaven knows.

Was it the shroud that was torn, or the face of time?

From my palm fall the past and the dead, in a rhythm sublime.

Stars had pressed their seals upon the night’s crest,

We are the suitors of fate’s harshest quest.

The sun eventually descends upon every sorrowful breast.

Pass through the sieve of love to cleanse the stained grief,

A prayer-mat’s length is the road to eternity, brief.

We, who brought tidings from the mighty Caucasus;

Of the love that blooms the body where evening finds us.

Dead roses cannot know how arduous it is to depart from the supreme Caucasus.

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Serenay Ozkan was born in Beykoz, Istanbul. She spent her childhood in the Bozkurt district of Kastamonu, where her connection with nature and literature began to take root. She turned towards poetry during her middle school years and officially embarked on her literary career in 2019 with the publication of her first poetry collection, Viata (Dorlion Publications), during her high school years.

Throughout 2025, Ozkan’s works were widely featured in prominent literary journals and fanzines. Her poems were published in Laf Arasi (“Emerald Eyes”), Derin Kalem E-Magazine (“Night Fire”), Gençlik Meclisi (“Deep-Rooted Tree”), Bir Kafa Sesi Fanzine (“Crescent of Black Birds”), Yaşama Uğraşı Fanzine (“Graveyard of Carnations”), Asonans (“Seedling”), and Pratfall Magazine (“The Light of the Lighthouse”).

Expanding her reach into prose, her short story collection, Farklı Bir Mehtap (A Different Moonlight), earned publication rights after being selected in the monthly literary competition organized by Yol Akademi Publishing Group and was released on November 11, 2025.

She is currently continuing her academic journey at Istanbul University, Faculty of Letters, in the Department of Contemporary Turkish Dialects and Literatures.

Serenay can found on ​Instagram @serenayozkanofficial and Bluesky @serenayozkann.bsky.social