“February. Get ink, shed tears.Write of it, sob your heart out, sing,While torrential slush that roarsBurns in the blackness of the spring.Go hire a buggy. For six grivnas,Race through the noice of bells and wheelsTo where the ink and all you grievingAre 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, hurlDry sadness deep into the eyes.Below, the wet black earth shows through,With sudden cries the wind is pitted,The more haphazard, the more trueThe poetry that sobs its heart out. ”

“FebruaryBoris PasternakIt's February. Get ink. Weep.Write the heart out about it, singAnother song of FebruaryWhile raucous slush burns black with spring.Six grivnas* for a buggy ridePast booming bells, on screaming gears,Out to a place where drizzles fallLouder than any ink or tearsWhere like a flock of charcoal pears,A thousand blackbirds, ripped awryFrom trees to puddles, knock dry griefInto the deep end of the eye.A thaw patch blackens underfoot.The wind is gutted with a scream.True verses are the most haphazard,Rhyming the heart out on a theme.*Grivna: a unit of currency.”

“Bright beads of red are rising through the ink, Hearts-blood bubbles smearing out into the black stream”

“Fool! Nothing but black ink runs through my veins!”

“As you get older, the heart shed its leaves like a tree. You cannot hold out against certain winds. Each day tears away a few more leaves; and then there are the storms that break off several branches at one go. And while nature’s greenery grows back again in the spring, that of the heart never grows back.”

“neon sign in red letters EXIT TO HELL…A walks under the arch….she seems not to notice where she is going….Just as the angels are preparing to carry the arch away B makes a desperate dash at it and dives through. Everything blacks out… What happens when you start the downward trip?...Of course there isn’t a hope of ever getting out again into the light. Once you’re on your way down, the machinery takes charge of you, you’re caught, trapped, finished for good and all…you might just as well give in and pluck the cruel thorn of hope out of your heart.”