Poetry and Photography by Elvin Karda Gökce

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learning from the roots - taken with Canon 500D, 2013.

[elvinkarda]

When happiness takes hold of me, its embrace is not made of silk, but a sea of flames. A kind of drunken bliss that burns in my lungs. On summer nights, during short walks, I am filled with an endless desire to keep going. A lovely conversation, the stars above my head – why not set off for foreign lands with nothing but the clothes on my back?

//

On Summer Nights - taken with Canon 500D, 2022.

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A Rose of Remanbrance - taken on film with Minolta X-300, 2023.

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Coming Into Being Through Overcoming - mixed media, 2026.

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'I am a worm and not a man.' [psalm 22:6] - taken with Canon 500D, 2022. //

Vermis Sum - inspiriert von Jan van Ruusbroec

In der Liebe uns selbst gestorben Im Genießen das Ich ausgegossen Im eigenen Wesen leben durch die Minne und allzeit sterben durch göttliche Sinne

Sterbendes Leben, lebendes Sterben Es berühren den brennenden Funken Hingabe und Verschenken Aufgezehrt und abgelegt die Eigenheit selig im ledigen Sein

Übung der Liebe ist frei und schont sich nicht Ihre Natur ist mild und begehrlich sie fordert und bietet, gibt und nimmt Der minniglichen Einkehr Ursprung und Beginn

Wahre Liebe sucht nicht was ihr nicht gehört Traumwandelnd, scheinbar tanzende dieser Welt in schwindelnden Höhen der Gedankenflug Nicht Mensch bin ich, sondern Wurm

[Elvin Karda, Oktober 2024]

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flying crow - taken on Canon 500D, many years ago.

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The Artisan's Wondrous Fate - taken with Canon 500D, 2022. // "The artisan, above all others, has the most curious of fates in this regard. How often does he devote his entire mind and all his passion to creating spaces from which he must exclude himself! The royal halls owe their splendour to him, yet he does not share in their greatest impact. In the temples, he draws a line between himself and the Holy of Holies; he may no longer tread the steps he laid for that heart-lifting solemnity, just as the goldsmith worships the monstrance only from afar, having arranged its metalwork and precious stones. The architect hands over to the rich man, along with the key to the palace, all comfort and ease, without sharing in any of it. Must not art gradually thus distance itself from the artist, if the work, like a well-dressed child, no longer reflects back upon the father?"

[Goethe: Die Wahlverwandtschaften, an addendum from Ottilie's diary]

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The Self as a Product - Spatula technique using acrylic on cardboard, Elvin Karda, 2025. // “What is this surging feeling? Why won’t it just let me be?” I asked myself, and at that very moment I heard the voices telling me that I was, after all, much more reserved and calm than others from “my cultural circle”, and I wondered: Could it be that I was simply better at hiding the storms and outbursts? Was I perhaps just a hypocrite with well-mannered manners? Did I want to fit in, or am I actually a person of calm? At the age of twenty-four, I questioned my entire life for the first time and I wanted to know who I would have become without my parents’ expectations, without the circumstances of the zeitgeist, and I ask myself whether this ‘I’ even exists, so clear and unformed, so free of ideas and desires, and I come to the realisation: The self is a product, and geography its destiny. [excerpt taken from the novel: Local Stranger (orig. "Hiesige Fremde") by Elvin Karda]

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I am the small tree on the rubble heap, dreaming of the forest - taken with Canon 500D, 2024. // Believe me, it takes time for the sting of vanity to wear off, until it hardly hurts anymore to be unseen. Do you think the dandelion asks for admirers as it patiently pushes its way out of the concrete? How beautiful it is to see poppies in fiery red splendor against a barbed wire fence. On the inside of benches, a layer of moss that looks like tiny stars. Ivy tendrils that don't hesitate to cling their mischievous tendrils to cold walls. On construction rubble, where a small tree emerges towards the end of the work, thin and slender, yet full of pride, it stretches its branches towards the sky, and we don't know if it dreams of becoming a mighty oak, but it stands here now, not in the forest, it stands where I can see and admire it. And perhaps that isn't enough for most, but it is something, and that is more than nothing. [text and photograph by Elvin Karda]

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I turn away from you, O Sun! – I have enough life within me that will never come to fruition. Why do you tickle my green shoots – why do you lie? Your light is not my light, and what you bring to growth is not mine! //

not my light - taken with Sony Alpha 7 II, 2026.

[text and photograph by Elvin Karda]

[elvinkarda]

beach of the sleeping giants - taken on film with Minolta X-300, 2024. //

Foaming, surging — brought to a boil, come to spill away; drawn into the chasms of the sea, still swimming while drowning.

Amid the oceans, bridges were built; the water consecrated, blessed by the devout. The seven highest mountains — too low to come anywhere near the longing. The strings of the lute have spoken for the parched mouth. To win love, the self has been lost in floods of salt.

[photograph and text by Elvin Karda]

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glimpse of a bookshelf - taken with taken with Sony Alpha 7, 2026.

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Does joy blind your vision? - taken with Sony Alpha 7, 2026. // Colours evolve in response to the changing sky, the weather and shifting light conditions. But colours can also appear and feel different from within: are clouds hanging over our hearts, or does joy blind our vision? In a fleeting moment, the dreamer may catch a glimpse of an unfamiliar nuance or, from the depths of our emotions, experience a sense of a higher reality.

[photograph and text by Elvin Karda]

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It was like my own pilgrimage: walking at least ten kilometres in all weathers for five years. In winter, the cold made my fingers swell up and throb with pain. Yet in those few seconds when I framed a shot with my camera, those were the rare moments when my mind went blank – breaks during which I didn’t think, but simply existed in the world. // I simply existed - taken with Canon 500D, 202?.

[text and photograph by Elvin Karda]

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As the fog in the morning hours settles over streets and hovers around spires, so too does a veil lie over some things, making it not only difficult but almost impossible for most observers to recognize everyday yet extraordinary experiences of beauty. To find beauty in the sun is a gift many can share, but to recognize a peculiar grace in the shadows, in the lost, in the ownerless, and to be able to share it is friendship, is love, is felicity. //

compilation of foggy images - taken with Canon 500D, 2023. [text and photograph by Elvin Karda]

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moving words - taken on film with Minolta X-300, 2022.

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Written in a fit of inspiration and imbued with Sufi ideas: one of my latest fragments of a poem, typed on a typewriter. Unfortunately, the ink ribbon is faulty and I can barely type a single word without having to reinsert the ribbon.

The Shadow of the Paradise Tree

In Paradise where all rivers meet and gather in a sea of light, the wild unrest within the heart is tossed and turned by worldly longing.

No deed can truly last unless it bears the touch of love. The will bows down in service before Beauty's first and shining light.

There is a road to deathlessness— not through name, nor wealth, nor family. Whoever loves and guards compassion shall never fade from the eternal resonance,

like the nightingale's song, like the seven seas fed by the valley of tears.

The mountains rose from foaming waves, and drinking of your breath awoke to wisdom, transfixed and broken by a single gaze.

Your rebuke as well as your favor I cherish more than every promise of joy.