Rizwan Akhtar teaches at the Department of English, Punjab University, Lahore, Pakistan. His poems have appeared in Poetry Salzburg Review, Poetry NZ, Wasafiri, Postcolonial Text (Canada), decanto, Poesia (US), Exiled Ink, Pakistaniat : A Journal of Pakistani Studies (US), Solidarity International, Orbis, The Other Poetry, Planet; The Welsh International, Wolf, South Asian Review, Gutter: New Scottish writings, Open Road Review, ScottishPen, tinfoildresses (US), and in Bloodaxe anthology Out of Bounds (2011).
Here is his poem inspired by his time in Edinburgh…
Edinburgh Calls
On granite structures
wooden walls creak as words escape
outside rain sneaks silence
like language it has pauses
cinching vows in smattering sounds
hooded plodding I mount city’s hills
imagining holes in windows
covering my splaying gait
like a sentence needing extra support
after living mistily on pages of history
and a full stop to stare and look around
for a map everywhere alleys creep
on kidney stones a cobbled-pinch
runs through legs
there is some charm in getting tired
nursing crackling bones on benches
alone with a wet pigeon
shouldering luggage the unpaid postman
of dark evenings emerging
from the hazy basin of Froth’s estuary
over Queensferry Bridge
quivering on cables
stroking winds anti-clockwise
a metallic North Sea
spooks primitive music
buses plow through wet spaces
you miss one and wait for the next
out of geographic love.