jhilmil-breckenridge
Writer, poet, baker, believer in miracles and unicorns, hopeless romantic, ever wandering, ever wondering. / / [email protected]
I hear stories of an ancient land so pure.
I see photographs of bluer than blue skies
over a lake of molten gold.
I drink kahwa flavoured with almond and saffron
and add honey, sweetened by bees from the valley,
my hips swaying in a crewel work on wool skirt.
I hear songs of freedom, I know people who fled.
The muezzin prays for peace over bloodstains and tears
while children still play under walnut trees.
Clouds gather to pray at Shankaracharya Temple
on a mountain dipping its toes into water
while empty shikaras speak of visiting ghosts.
Mothers whose eyes never tire, looking over the sunset
for long lost sons; wives who still lay out their husband’s
slippers on a carpet with frayed edges.
Postmen deliver letters to addresses long abandoned;
a generation of elders, eyes of agate, gnarled fingers, brew tea
surrounded by memories of children killed, daughters *****
I write for all people who live in war.
I write for the age of innocence to return.
I write for soft rain to wash away sin.
I write for the return to reason.
I write for peace to flutter gently through groves
of apricot, almond, apple and walnut.
Feel the pain. Hear the refrain. Smell the emptiness.
This is now. This is now. This is not in the pages
of a fading history text. This is now. This is now.
Nov 6, 2016
Nov 6, 2016 at 7:25 PM UTC
A lifejacket whistle becomes a toy
Instead of a call for help
Chilling new games on the beach
Lives in limbo
While politicians and governments
Change their mind by the second
And young men whose muscles ache to work
And women who were used to wealth
And children who had a favourite stuffed bear
And a best friend who they shared lunch with
Are all equalised
A new label called “Refugee”
Stamped across their very being
Dismissed for having an expensive cellphone
And a lifejacket whistle becomes a toy
As they are rocked from shore to shore
May 25, 2016
May 25, 2016 at 8:45 PM UTC
i have fallen in love
with the blush of the cherry blossom
the delicate scent
the bloom on the branch
i have fallen in love
with the cascade of the cherry blossom
the clusters like grapes
and patterns of light and shade
i have fallen in love
with a pink so pink
fresher than strawberry ice-cream
or revlon’s baby pink gloss
i have fallen in love
with cherry blossoms in the breeze
petals flutter and hover
like snowflakes in the night
i have fallen in love
with every day, every season, every flower
every birth, every death, every sickness
because life changes and alters
i have fallen in love
with life, with love, with pain
i have fallen in love
i have fallen in love
May 7, 2016
May 7, 2016 at 5:31 AM UTC
Floating, like a specimen,
in a bell jar in the Chemistry Lab
of Grade XI in Lucknow.
I am suspended. I am floating.
Everywhere is blue.
I hear bubbles and see them rise.
I open my mouth and water rushes in,
salty and warm. I can’t speak.
I can’t cry out.
I am drowning.
I think of Varanasi; skulls
that float. Why do dead
skulls float? Why do the living
sink?
I want to rise. The sea
is inky black. An octopus
floats by. A school of clown
fish gaze at me curiously.
I think of swimming
like the fish in a warm ocean
in the Andaman Sea. I hear
laughter, I feel the sun on my
shoulders.
Oh, the sun. I miss the sun.
I crave heat. It is so very
cold. It is so very cold.
I feel something warmer
on my lower back. I look.
A dolphin is smiling.
Yes, smiling!
I look down at myself.
I am a mermaid!
My hair is blonde, my waist
is tiny, and my *******
are encased in shells.
I laugh gleefully.
The dolphin, as if on cue,
swims below me
and I mount him.
And then, like we have been
doing this since time immemorial,
our bodies in sync,
we float upwards.
Joy abounds. An effervescence,
a lightness of spirit, a playfulness
that heals.
The water is getting warmer
and paler. We playfully swim
with all the time in the world.
And as I surface for the air
that I don’t need,
I am full of peace.
Apr 21, 2016
Apr 21, 2016 at 5:22 AM UTC
as the morning breeze wafts
over fragrant jasmine and bela
and the parakeets roost
in guava trees
and the slant of the mango tree
welcomes the sun on dewdrops
i hear the call to prayer and my heart supplicates
my body trembles and i kneel
my hands fold in prayer
my fingers run over the holy beads
and as my body surrenders
to words as old as time is told
i feel the rivulets of sweat down my back
my body continuing it’s dance of offering
and as i hear the raucous chatter of the birds
and the sounds of the house stirring
i give thanks for another morning
and give in to the pleasure of being
Apr 13, 2016
Apr 13, 2016 at 6:14 AM UTC
I wake to the news of another lynching
As our boys scream Bleed Blue
And over the border, the Green Girls rejoice
And somewhere in Jharkhand
Two families mourn the death of their men
Cattle traders? Terrorists? Muslim?
With cloth stuffed in their throats
And arms tied behind
Hatred showing in the mob mentality
Another dark blot on our secular fabric
And I watch a short film, India, India
Of a young boy on Tuesday selling ganeshas at a temple
Another image of the same boy on a Friday
Selling taweez and chanting Ya Ali
Outside Mumbai’s Haji Ali
And on Sunday, the same boy singing the praises
of the Lord outside a church, selling amulets
And I smile
This is the India I love, the different faiths
The acceptance, the co-existence
As the morning drones on, I watch and participate
In the endless debates on Facebook and Twitter
Of people posing, taking sides, sounding pedantic
While they sit comfortably in their homes
Sipping ginger tea made by an underage maid
While their Labrador retriever is taken for a walk
By their Nepali driver and the Muslim cook smokes a bidi
In the garden with the Bihari maali where their son plays
But what will happen to the sons of the lynched cattle traders?
What will happen to the brothers of the women *****
What will happen to the mothers of the sons killed?
What will happen to the fathers of the unborn children
Killed for their mistake of being a girl child?
Is this the India we want to grow up in?
Is this the India we want to have children in?
Is this the India we want to grow old in?
Wake up, my country, it is still dawn
The road is long and far and we have miles to walk
Towards peace and freedom and love
Towards acceptance and equality and oneness
Get off that sofa and make a difference
Participate, vote, empower, create, enable
It’s up to you whether our country goes this way or that
So, wake up, my country, it is still dawn
Wake up, my country, it is still dawn
Mar 20, 2016
Mar 20, 2016 at 7:57 AM UTC
Walk with me, with calloused feet and weary eyes
Walk with me, through crowded marketplaces
Where they bargain over the price of love
And bodies are sold for a song
Walk with me, dusk is far away still
Our anklets are shackles, our souls a shroud
The market is a sea of sharks today
Their gleaming, moist teeth threaten and lure
Walk with me, my love, my heart, the air in my lungs
Let’s breathe freedom one last time
Where the tinkling laughter of a child is still heard
And the nights are still scented with jasmine
Walk with me, as our prices are fixed
For the sway in our hips, or the curve of our lips
Walk with me, dusk is approaching
And the auctioneer’s hammer is about to fall
Mar 18, 2016
Mar 18, 2016 at 1:23 AM UTC
In your name, my country, I write today
For all the voices that cannot speak
For all the voices that are silenced
For all the wailing children unheard
For the mullahs and the pandits and the priests
For the politicians and the newsmakers
For the consumers and sharers of “news”
For all the women who bleed onto to the dry earth
For all the animals who are tortured
For the weak who toil in the burning sun
For the strong who drive their air-conditioned SUVs
For the singers, poets and artists
For the farmers, masons and carpenters
For the babies who will know only this way
For the old who remember how things were
For the ones caught in between
For the children and women *****
For the rapists drunk on power
For the believers and the non-believers
For all of us and all of them
In your name, my country, I weep
In your name, my country, I hope
In your name, my country, I believe
Mar 16, 2016
Mar 16, 2016 at 2:49 AM UTC
Only the eyes remain as they were.
The rest of her face is ravaged
by acid. Acid thrown by two
boys on a cycle. Just
another dare.
She combs her long hair carefully. Plaits it
neatly away from her face. No curtain of hair
to hide behind. Puts a bindi in the battleground
of keloids, scars and uncooked skin. She wears
them well.
The boys genuflect in a temple, mothers kissing
saffron kerchief covered heads
before they gel their hair
and go on another prowl. This is what
men do, you see.
Lakshmi puts another layer
of cream on her burns and then stands
behind a beauty counter selling bindis
and lipsticks to girls with unblemished faces,
like their eyes. Like her eyes.
Mar 8, 2016
Mar 8, 2016 at 4:32 AM UTC
You are gone at first light
Lipstick stains on the wine glass gleam
It was a crazy night
Your shape on the sheets so white
Makes me ache and remember my scream
You are gone at first light
The cigarette butts on the floor a sight
All memories of a recurring theme
It was a crazy night
The empty bottles full of our ghosts so light
It was not love supreme
You are gone at first light
The bruise on my inner thigh a sight
Not a theme for a dream
It was a crazy night
So I will search some more for my knight
In the bright light of the dancing sunbeam
You are gone at first light
It was a crazy night
Mar 6, 2016
Mar 6, 2016 at 5:20 AM UTC