"What They Call a Poem" by Praniti Gulyani

Image by Pradipna Lodh from Pexels

I’m afraid you might have
just twisted your pen in the wrong direction
causing it to swerve, skid, stop
and perhaps be laughed and mocked at

Like a reckless driver, who skips
the clarity of roundabouts and speed breakers
just to feel the wind leaving frosty footprints
on the flushed warmth of rosy cheeks.

Like a photographer, who rides a surf-board
into the middle of a frothing sea, and with
one single hand, he grips his camera, and with
the other, he sifts the clouds, pushes back the stars,
rips open the sky, and lets an eclipse
trickle from the entangled roots of blue.  And as this
fiery eclipse trickles into the waters
he pauses, and takes a snap.

Like an artist, who spends hours
with his knees digging into the mud, and who
still emerges with knee-caps of soil
just to sketch that dewdrop, that dewdrop midway
as it rolls down from the leaf
nearly touching the soil

Like a bangle seller, who sits on
her haunches, the cracks in her feet
pouring with sunlight, moonlight and twilight.
She displays her fingers that glint in the sun,
fingers stained with glitter and glamour
the colors of her bangles, the spicy shades
of gossip and conversation.  She climbs up a ladder,
and measures the diameter, the radius of the moon
and using these celestial dimensions, she makes her
bangles and calls them divine.

I’m afraid you might have
just twisted your pen in the wrong direction
causing it to swerve, skid, stop
and perhaps be laughed and mocked at
I’m afraid you might have just written
what they call a poem.

Praniti Gulyani is 17 years old; she lives in New Delhi, India.  Praniti aspires to become a full-time author someday. As of now, she has conversations with the characters in her head, and loves to put her story on their shoulders, and set them out into the world. She has had her stories published in journals around the world, and aspires to write a debut novel one day.