Live Encounters Poetry & Writing 16th Anniversary Volume Six
November- December 2025
Marbles, poem by Elif Sezen.
Marbles
Children notice everything others consider coincidental
Secrecy is irrelevant: a burden growing by itself
They pick up the quantum atoms of life as
glass marbles in their hands, skillfully
is this a game of yes and no
or a strategy of survival?
Growing, losing their valuable marbles through
wrong answers and irrelevant trade-offs
The traces of holy and maternal nourishments are lost
The soul is in hunger, its light is fading away
it is thirsty, suffocating, but cannot
figure out what it is searching for
and what it is absent of
Growing, that deserted tunnel
where something human compassionately awaits
some surrender of the small self
© Elif Sezen
Elif Sezen is an Australian/Turkish multidisciplinary artist, bilingual poet/writer, translator. Her poetry collection A Little Book of Unspoken History was published by Puncher & Wattmann (2018), Universal Mother by Gloria SMH Press (2016). Her poems appeared in national and international journals and anthologies. She holds a PhD from Monash University, and currently lives and works in Melbourne. Elif’s website: https://www.elifsezen.com/