Smoking Serves A Host To Cancer Poem by Rajendran Muthiah

I was shocked to hear,
' Do you mind if I smoke? '
from a white boy in Melbourne Station
as I never heard it anywhere before
from people boasting of civilized manners.
The single moms here wanting a partner
say about themselves in plain:
' I smoke one or two times
and drink a glass of wine a day.'
Fine and frank wives they will be.
'Does smoking enhance your manliness? '
I asked him and he responded with a smile.

I gave up smoking
when my first grand child
told me of some bad smell
coming out of my mouth.
when I tried to revert
to that gentle habit after a gap,
a sense of vomiting, I felt
and said bye to it once for all.

Neither did I smoke in toilets
nor I blew plumes of smoke
on the faces of friends and elders.
Some boys say, they feel brave,
if they puff on cigars in open.
Some breathe out rings of fumes
before the girls waiting for the buses
but the girls these days exhale
curls of smoke to shock them.

A close friend of mine
who had been a chain-smoker
got the acquaintance of a sage
and was taught a fact of life:
' Lose one thing to gain another'.
so he has kept of smoking cigars
and brought in smoking marijuana.
He inhales the fumes into his lungs
and exhales through oral and nasal ways
to inflict a multi-pronged assault
on his fellow disciples.

Our boys feel elated being adored
for their smoking and gambling skills.
Once they serve a host to cancer
friends too won't pay a visit
to see them breathing last in tears.
Their souls will struggle to escape
from the engulfing fumes of cigars
and no more chance for them
to jiggle in bed or giggle in life.
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