Poems by Rizwan Akhtar
“Vernal Equinox 2024”
By Rizwan Akhtar
a new silence sat on trees, words
carpeted a mute road, some
birds cried over prolonged evenings
under stable shadows,
nothing so blue, even white feathers
were visible in the sky, ejecting
clouds from the scheme, the wind
wished for a home in every space,
we who have been more impatient waited
on windows, their hinges carefully oiled,
only an old man sulked past us
after a hiatus, I would say I love you.
“fragment
By Rizwan Akhtar
two crows landed on the ground in a 4 o’clock haze
they looked like a surrealist’s subject, silent but with
a motive, last night’s heavy rain bulged them,
dripping, reluctant to pick from a soggy ground,
whining for an unknown reason, caused their beaks
spill something invisible, only a miracle can turn
this black fantasy into clarity, holding on tenuously.
“The Tree Speaks Love”
By Rizwan Akhtar
I am watching a tree almost weightless
under a December’s compressed sun
it talks to me, of course, not in words
but in intermittent leaves, this means
it is aware of taking a pause and silence
and writes its script for us aesthetically
a rugged wind like a political ideology
shatters ideals scattered over the canopy
but the barks resist interventions, however
in summer, it may become pliant and use
some rhetorical flaunting, newly bred flowers
till then, I will visit its nude exterior, hoping a
fuller return holding someone’s soft hands.
- Rizwan Akhtar is a writer from Lahore, Pakistan. His debut collection of poems Lahore, I Am Coming (2017) was published by Punjab University Press. He has published poems in well-established poetry magazines in the UK, the US, India, Canada, and New Zealand. He was a part of the workshop on poetry with Derek Walcott at the University of Essex in 2010.
By Rizwan Akhtar
a new silence sat on trees, words
carpeted a mute road, some
birds cried over prolonged evenings
under stable shadows,
nothing so blue, even white feathers
were visible in the sky, ejecting
clouds from the scheme, the wind
wished for a home in every space,
we who have been more impatient waited
on windows, their hinges carefully oiled,
only an old man sulked past us
after a hiatus, I would say I love you.
“fragment
By Rizwan Akhtar
two crows landed on the ground in a 4 o’clock haze
they looked like a surrealist’s subject, silent but with
a motive, last night’s heavy rain bulged them,
dripping, reluctant to pick from a soggy ground,
whining for an unknown reason, caused their beaks
spill something invisible, only a miracle can turn
this black fantasy into clarity, holding on tenuously.
“The Tree Speaks Love”
By Rizwan Akhtar
I am watching a tree almost weightless
under a December’s compressed sun
it talks to me, of course, not in words
but in intermittent leaves, this means
it is aware of taking a pause and silence
and writes its script for us aesthetically
a rugged wind like a political ideology
shatters ideals scattered over the canopy
but the barks resist interventions, however
in summer, it may become pliant and use
some rhetorical flaunting, newly bred flowers
till then, I will visit its nude exterior, hoping a
fuller return holding someone’s soft hands.
- Rizwan Akhtar is a writer from Lahore, Pakistan. His debut collection of poems Lahore, I Am Coming (2017) was published by Punjab University Press. He has published poems in well-established poetry magazines in the UK, the US, India, Canada, and New Zealand. He was a part of the workshop on poetry with Derek Walcott at the University of Essex in 2010.
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