I

When home is broken

We pick through ruins —

Ruins of fantasy and broken dreams,

Sift through promises shredded 

Love stale, memory flaky,

Bitter regrets at bad investments.

There's nothing safe or secure

In human relationship as sits a water drop

On the leaf, uneasy quicksilver, 

Trembly, dicey, poised to roll off.

When home leaves the house

And its paints begin to peel off

And its fancy hangings flop,

The nightmare of love remains there

Only to be used to and lived through.

II

We agree to mean:

Meaning grows

On the body of illusion.

Tales, fables, parables

Are but bleeding animals

We sacrifice to atone for sin,

The fiction I mean, fed on 

By parasites of meaning.

We agree to mean,

And thereby hangs the tale.

The viscera of meaning

Draws from our illusion

And by believing the meaning

We slip into illusion again.

Pun, puzzle, quandary,

Doubt, suspicion, presumption ~

All these spring from the dead fiction

Like flies swarming into meaning.

Masud Mahmood is Professor, Department of English, University of Chittagong.