Why smoke?

It's a pleasure, pure and personal
Not dependant on anyone for it
Easily available
Frowned upon, but tolerated
Gives an adrenaline start to the day
To jump-start the flaccid and tired nerves
Finale to food, complement to a drink or two
Friend of frenzied moments
Solace for the blues
Nothing beats the post-coital smoke-
Catecholamines and nicotine are a potent upper.
From the first puff and paroxysm of cough
From young, untainted lungs in protest
To, million cigarettes later
Paroxysms of cough
From tar sodden lungs of middle age
Each smoke was worth it.
Thank you Sir Walter Raleigh
For introducing us
To the infernal weed!

Woman 3: Metamorphosis

That stunted mango tree near my window
Through whose branches, green tinted
Sun rays snatch away the last dregs
Of the divine opiate- sleep;
I had some enmity with it somewhere.
As it stood forlorn against the green
At a cursory glance, I had labeled it
- sterile, barren, woman past her prime.
One night came a fairy with her wand- Summer.
Little buds peeped, little leaves followed
And rather prematurely ( it seemed)
Came the fruits.
Now the little tree stands
Like a brazen little woman
Flaunting her bounties at me.

Woman 2

The sea was a woman
Dark, wanton and beckoning.
Her breath fanned me
And her pulse rose and fell
With metronomic regularity
On the beach.
Under the canopy of stars
We had united in a thrashing frenzy
On a dark, breezy night
Watched by the sly, old voyeur
- The Goan moon.
I felt her through every pore of my being.
Wit exhausted limbs
And cooled fever
I had flopped back on the sand
And lit a cigarette

Woman 1: From here to eternity

Woman
Eternal woman
Eternal mystery
Since the dawn of creation
You are my mate
And I always
An intrepid explorer
Of the dark secrets
Enfolded in the lush curves of your body
Yet I have not taken
More than a few hesitant steps
In to the labyrinth of your mind!

Stigma

A poet, successful or not
Must bear a stigma.
This blighted creature
must see life differently,
from the rest of mankind,
in a manner divergent,
with a view that is his own,
and put it on paper, he must
however prosaic it may be.
An object of suspicion, a tinge of distrust,
a stigma, that is his cross.

Abode of Justice

Teeming with people-
Mostly poor, seeking elusive justice.
Lawyers-vultures in their black and white plumage
The fat ones, gorged on their fill of human misery
Scrawny ones- crows sweating, cackling,
Waiting for their turn at the carcass.
Typist- busy woodpeckers
Pecking away at their dilapidated Remingtons.
Clerks- busy sparrows chattering, forever
Rushing, to and fro, foraging for lost papers,
That will never be found nor the justice that lies strewn
Or buried with these papers.
Notary public- grave mynah, head cocked,
Willing to vouch for the vilest untruth
on your behalf, for a fee.
The abode of justice itself,
Dark, musty, dank with the stench of sweat and
Bidi smoke, walls besmirched by countless paan -chewers.
The colour on the walls, appropriately red
Is justice bleeding, haemorrhaging,
Dying a slow death.