The Emperor's New Heart

Sew up my heart
With french seams
So you cant tell
There was ever anything
But perfect lines and
Crisp layers,
Perfectly tailored to match
Any situation.
Cover my untrained actions
And hide my deep thoughts
With suave comments
And clever remarks;
New clothes to cover
All the tears and ragged edges
And maybe once, all these
Solitary patches
Can beat as one:
Warm and bright
And full of life.

Poetry... Boris Pasternak

A Russian Poem by Boris Pasternak

February. Get ink, shed tears.
Write of it, sob your heart out, sing,
While torrential slush that roars
Burns in the blackness of the spring.

Go hire a buggy. For six grivnas,
Race through the noise of bells and wheels
To where the ink and all your grieving
Are muffled when the rainshower falls.

To where, like pears burnt black as charcoal,
A myriad rooks, plucked from the trees,
Fall down into the puddles, hurl
Dry sadness deep into the eyes.

Below, the wet black earth shows through,
With sudden cries the wind is pitted,
The more haphazard, the more true
The poetry that sobs its heart out.

1912. By Boris Pasternak. Translated by Alex Miller.