Poem
Zaffar Kunial
Q
Q
Q
Somewhere (thank you, father) over the hills,through some trap-door in my mind, despite my having
no call to speak it, and hearing of it so long ago,
I know the Urdu ishq is love.
And further, how it’s the highest (a divine fervour,
a bolt cued from the round heavens – almost angelic)
among a whole host of forms, or feathers, of love
like that myth of subtle Inuit measures of snow
and now I’ve utterly gone and put my foot in it
and other shoppers are turning round, as we inch
up to the queue’s end, still far from those tills,
and she’s prodding me to explain my short-falling
answer – giving the nod, when she asked me If . . . and Whether . . .
– she swears that at the end of my assent she heard me whisper
-ish
© 2014, Zaffar Kunial
Zaffar Kunial
(United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, 1975)
Zaffar Kunial is a Hebden Bridge-based poet whose impact on the UK scene belies a small – so far – published output. His scope is wide, and his poems are dense with tone, imagery, technique, rhyme, and colour. Kunial arrived fully fledged into the public consciousness, when his poem ‘Hill Speak’ won third prize in the National Poetry Competition in 2011. It is a subtle and surprising poem, refl...
Poems
Poems of Zaffar Kunial
Close
Q
Somewhere (thank you, father) over the hills,through some trap-door in my mind, despite my having
no call to speak it, and hearing of it so long ago,
I know the Urdu ishq is love.
And further, how it’s the highest (a divine fervour,
a bolt cued from the round heavens – almost angelic)
among a whole host of forms, or feathers, of love
like that myth of subtle Inuit measures of snow
and now I’ve utterly gone and put my foot in it
and other shoppers are turning round, as we inch
up to the queue’s end, still far from those tills,
and she’s prodding me to explain my short-falling
answer – giving the nod, when she asked me If . . . and Whether . . .
– she swears that at the end of my assent she heard me whisper
-ish
Q
Sponsors
Partners
LantarenVenster – Verhalenhuis Belvédère